Can you use assembly.load in monotouch?

Question

I'm currently trying to load a plugin assembly dynamically in a monotouch app.

To do this, I'm referencing the plugin dll in my app project, setting the limker to 'sdk only' and then i'm trying to call Assembly.Load(filename) within my app when the plugin is required.

This is the same approach that I've previously successfully used in monodroid. However currently, this is failing in monotouch with a FileLoadException.

Is this approach possible in monotouch? Is there a special file path you need to include? Or is this not supported in the aot environment?

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Note: Obviously there are other ways I can achieve a similar effect - and I do have a backup plan... but this is my preferred route (if I can make it work)

Answer 1

Code like:

var a = Assembly.Load ("mscorlib.dll");
Assert.NotNull (a);

works fine with both the simulator and devices. However the parameter for Load is assemblyString which is not a filename (even if the exception thrown make you think it is).

Many other overloads exists (for Load ) and other methods too (eg LoadFrom ) but they might not all work inside MonoTouch (since some runtime support might be missing).

NOTE

Handling of mscorlib.dll is special (and works in more cases than other assembles, ie shortcuts). However the reflection-based methods seems to work as expected in more cases, eg:

string filename = System.IO.Path.GetFileName (GetType ().Assembly.Location);
Assembly assembly = Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom (filename);

Answer 2

Assembly.Load (or any other way of loading code dynamically) is not supported in MonoTouch.

This is an iOS restriction - all the executable code has to be in the app (and it has to be native code, which is why we use AOT to generate native code at compile time).