The Global Assembly Cache (GAC) is a central repository in the .NET Framework for storing and managing shared assemblies. It plays a crucial role in the C# Assemblies ecosystem, providing a way to share common libraries across multiple applications on a single machine.
The GAC serves several important purposes:
To interact with the GAC, you'll need to use specific tools provided by the .NET Framework. Here are some common operations:
Use the gacutil.exe
tool to install an assembly:
gacutil /i YourAssembly.dll
To uninstall an assembly, use the following command:
gacutil /u YourAssembly
Assemblies must be strongly named to be installed in the GAC. This involves signing the assembly with a unique key pair. Here's how you can create a strong name key file:
sn -k KeyFile.snk
Then, add the following to your project file or assembly info:
[assembly: AssemblyKeyFile("KeyFile.snk")]
The GAC is closely related to several other C# concepts:
The Global Assembly Cache is a powerful feature of the .NET Framework that enables efficient sharing of assemblies across applications. By understanding its purpose and proper usage, developers can leverage the GAC to create more maintainable and performant C# applications.