What is Assembly

Question

What is meant by the term Assembly?

Answer 1

Assemblies are basic building blocks required for any application to function in.NET realm. They are partially compiled code libraries which form fundamental unit of versioning, deployment, activation, reuse, scoping, and security. Normally, assemblies offer a collection of types and resources which work altogether in order to form logical unit of the functionality. They are considered as the smallest deployable units of the code in .NET. As compared to the executable files, assemblies are, more secure, more dependable and easy to manage.

Assembly holds a lot more than the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) code which is compiled and then run by the Common Language Runtime (CLR). Or in other words, it can be said that an assembly is a group of one or more modules and classes compiled together in the MSIL, and the metadata which explains the assembly itself, as well as functionalities of the assembly classes.