This class represents an assembly's fully qualified name, which makes it unique. An assembly's identity consists of a simple name (the Name property), supported culture (CultureInfo), version number, and key pair. The version number itself has four parts: major version, minor version, build number, and revision number. The Flags property allows you to set the flags for an assembly (see the AssemblyNameFlags enumeration). Use HashAlgorithm to access the hash algorithm used with the manifest to verify that the files of an assembly are correct. VersionCompatibility is a System.Configuration.Assemblies.AssemblyVersionCompatibility enumeration, which allows specification of the compatibility between versions.

Both FullName and ToString( ) return a comma-delimited string formatted, such as Name, Culture = CultureInfo, Version = Version Number, SN = StrongName, PK = Public Key Token. Any of the parameters except Name are optional. SetPublicKey( ) and SetPublicKeyToken( ) allow you to specify a public key for an originator or the strong name, respectively, and the complementary Get methods allow you to retrieve the same information.

public sealed class AssemblyName : ICloneable, System.Runtime.Serialization.ISerializable,
       System.Runtime.Serialization.IDeserializationCallback {
// Public Constructors
   public AssemblyName( );
// Public Instance Properties
   public string CodeBase{set; get; }
   public CultureInfo CultureInfo{set; get; }
   public string EscapedCodeBase{get; }
   public AssemblyNameFlags Flags{set; get; }
   public string FullName{get; }
   public AssemblyHashAlgorithm HashAlgorithm{set; get; }
   public StrongNameKeyPair KeyPair{set; get; }
   public string Name{set; get; }
   public Version Version{set; get; }
   public AssemblyVersionCompatibility VersionCompatibility{set; get; }
// Public Static Methods
   public static AssemblyName GetAssemblyName(string assemblyFile);
// Public Instance Methods
   public object Clone( ); 
// implements ICloneable
   public void GetObjectData(System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationInfo info,
        System.Runtime.Serialization.StreamingContext context)
// implements ISerializable
   public byte[ ] GetPublicKey( );
   public byte[ ] GetPublicKeyToken( );
   public void OnDeserialization(object sender);     
// implements System.Runtime.Serialization.IDeserializationCallback
   public void SetPublicKey(byte[ ] publicKey);
   public void SetPublicKeyToken(byte[ ] publicKeyToken);
   public override string ToString( );    
// overrides object
}

Returned By

Assembly.{GetName( ), GetReferencedAssemblies( )}, AssemblyNameProxy.GetAssemblyName( )

Passed To

System.AppDomain.{DefineDynamicAssembly( ), Load( )}, Assembly.Load( ), System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.CompileToAssembly( )