Assembly

What is a satellite assembly? When you write a multilingual or multi-cultural application in .NET, and want to distribute the core application separately from the localized modules, the localized assemblies that modify the core application are called satellite assemblies.

Assembly

An assembly is the primary building block of a .NET Framework application. It is a collection of functionality that is built, versioned, and deployed as a single implementation unit (as one or more files). All managed types and resources are marked either as accessible only within their implementation unit, or as accessible by code outside that unit. .NET Assembly contains all the metadata about the modules, types, and other elements it contains in the form of a “manifest.” The CLR loves assemblies because differing programming languages are just perfect for creating certain kinds of applications. For example, COBOL stands for Common Business-Oriented Language because it’s tailor-made for creating business apps. However, it’s not much good for creating drafting programs. Regardless of what language you used to create your modules, they can all work together within one Portable Executable Assembly. There’s a hierarchy to the structure of .NET code. That hierarchy is “Assembly -> Module -> Type -> Method."Assemblies can be static or dynamic. Static assemblies can include .NET Framework types (interfaces and classes), as well as resources for the assembly (bitmaps, JPEG files, resource files, and so on). Static assemblies are stored on disk in portable executable (PE) files. You can also use the .NET Framework to create dynamic assemblies, which are run directly from memory and are not saved to disk before execution. You can save dynamic assemblies to disk after they have executed.

Manifest
An assembly manifest contains all the metadata needed to specify the assembly's version requirements and security identity, and all metadata needed to define the scope of the assembly and resolve references to resources and classes. The assembly manifest can be stored in either a PE (Portable Executable) file (an .exe or .dll) with Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) code or in a standalone PE (Portable Executable) file that contains only assembly manifest information.The following table shows the information contained in the assembly manifest. The first four items — the assembly name, version number, culture, and strong name information — make up the assembly's identity.Assembly name: A text string specifying the assembly's name.Version number: A major and minor version number, and a revision and build number. The common language runtime uses these numbers to enforce version policy.Culture: Information on the culture or language the assembly supports. This information should be used only to designate an assembly as a satellite assembly containing culture- or language-specific information. (An assembly with culture information is automatically assumed to be a satellite assembly.)Strong name information: The public key from the publisher if the assembly has been given a strong name.List of all files in the assembly: A hash of each file contained in the assembly and a file name. Note that all files that make up the assembly must be in the same directory as the file containing the assembly manifest.Type reference information: Information used by the runtime to map a type reference to the file that contains its declaration and implementation. This is used for types that are exported from the assembly.Information on referenced assemblies: A list of other assemblies that are statically referenced by the assembly. Each reference includes the dependent assembly's name, assembly metadata (version, culture, operating system, and so on), and public key, if the assembly is strong named.
(A) What is Manifest?
Assembly metadata is stored in Manifest.
Manifest contains all the metadata needed to do the following things( See Figure Manifest View for more details) :
√ Version of assembly
√ Security identity
√ Scope of the assembly
√ resolve references to resources and classes.
√ The assembly manifest can be stored in either a PE file (an .exe or .dll) with
Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) code or in a stand-alone PE file that
contains only assembly manifest information.