.Net Framework Essentials

Appendix D. Common Utilities

Microsoft .NET Framework provides many tools to help developers make the best use of the Framework. In the following sections, we document the commonly used subset of .NET tools that we’ve used throughout this book:

• Assembly Generation Utility (al.exe)

• Assembly Registration Utility (gac.exe)

• MSIL Assembler (ilasm.exe)

• MSIL Disassembler (ildasm.exe)

• C++ Compiler (cl.exe)

• C# Compiler (csc.exe)

• VB Compiler (vbc.exe)

• PE File viewer (dumpbin.exe)

• Type Library Exporter (tlbexp.exe)

• Type Library Importer (tlbimp.exe)

• XML Schema Definition Tool (xsd.exe)

• Shared Name Utility (sn.exe)

• Web Service Utility (wsdl.exe)

Assembly Generation Utility (al.exe)

While al.exe is generally used to generate assemblies with manifests, it can also be used to install assemblies into the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). The following table shows some of the common usages of the Assembly Generation Utility:

Option	Description
/flags: flags	Specifies a value for the Flags field in the assembly. 0x0000: side-by-side compatible. 0x0010: cannot execute with other versions in the same application domain. 0x0020: cannot execute with other versions in the same process. 0x0030: cannot execute with other versions on the same computer.
/help or /?	Use to get help for this command.
/install: filename or /i: filename	Use to install a strongly named assembly into the GAC. See also /keyfile and /keyname. If /out is specified, do not specify filename