How to get Namespace of an Assembly?

Question

Consider i have an assembly(class library dll) which i have loaded using the following code,

Assembly a = Assembly.LoadFrom(@"C:\Documents and Settings\E454935\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\nunit_dll_hutt\for_hutt_proj\bin\Debug\asdf.dll");   

and i need to get the type of the Assembly. In order to get the type i need the namespace of the assembly.

Type t = asm.GetType("NAMESPACE.CLASSNAME",false,true);             

how can i get the Namespace in the above line.?! as inorder to get the Namespace, i need to get the type..?

Type.Namespace;

i.e i need to get the Namespace of the assembly which can be used to get its Type.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

An assembly can contain multiple namespaces. I think what you really want to ask is how to get a type from an assembly without specifying the namespace.

I don't know if there is a better way, but you can try looking for the specific type like this (add - using linq;):

myassembly.GetTypes().SingleOrDefault(t => t.Name == "ClassName")

This will effectively throw if there is more than 1 class with that name under different namespaces (because the Single method ensures there is only 1).

For a list of the namespaces for that class you can:

Assembly.Load("ClassName").GetTypes().Select(t => t.Namespace).Distinct();

Answer 2

Updated:

IF the assembly name & assembly namespace are same in your project and you sure keep theme same AND you want get the namespace of the current executed Assembly then you can use this:

var namespace = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Name;

And for your loaded assembly:

var namespace = myAssembly.GetName().Name;

---

But IF the assembly name & assembly namespace are not same in your project then you can use this way:

// Like @eglasius answer >>
// Find all namespaces in the target assembly where a class with the following name is exists:
var namespaceList=Assembly.Load("MyClassName").GetTypes().Select(t => t.Namespace).Distinct();

Answer 3

Assembly.GetName().Name will get you the default namespace

Answer 4

Using Mono/Xamarin, you don't have access to the "NameSpace" property. You may use the following instead:

var str = typeof(ATypeInTheAssembly).AssemblyQualifiedName;
return str.Split(',')[1].Trim();

Answer 5

To take only the namespace follows the code below:

  var assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(this.GetType());//Get the assembly object
  var nameSpace = assembly.GetType().Namespace;//Get the namespace

OR

public string GetNamespace(object obj)
{
    var nameSpace = obj.GetType().Namespace;//Get the namespace

    return nameSpace;
}

Answer 6

Getting that an assembly must contains almost a class (or any other type, such as an interface) and they must be contained in a namespace, which has to start within the assembly namespace, the shortest of them will be the last one.

So, here is the solution I found:

public string GetAssemblyNamespace(Assembly asm)
{
    string ns = @"";
    foreach (Type tp in asm.Modules.First().GetTypes()) //Iterate all types within the specified assembly.
        if (ns.Length == 0 ? true : tp.Namespace.Length < ns.Length) //Check whether that's the shortest so far.
            ns = tp.Namespace; //If it's, set it to the variable.
    return ns; //Now it is the namespace of the assembly.
}

I just find all types within the required assembly and I search for which is contained in the namespace having the shortest name.