Creating a strongly-named managed (/clr) C++ assembly

Question

I have a managed C++ assembly using the /clr switch that I am trying to sign as per this question with the following post-build step:

sn -Ra "$(TargetPath)" MyKey.snk

However this is giving the following error:

C:\Path\Assembly.dll does not represent a strongly named assembly

What is going wrong?

Answer 1

Have you marked the assembly for delay signing in AssemblyInfo.cpp?

[assembly:AssemblyKeyFileAttribute("MyKey.snk")];
[assembly:AssemblyDelaySignAttribute(true)];

Answer 2

I figured this one out in the end - as per the linked question I cannot just set the Linker/Advanced/KeyFile option and expect it to work - I need to use sn.exe to sign the assembly, however I also still need the Linker/Advanced/KeyFile option to be set.

In short to sign a /clr assembly you need to both:

1. Specify a keyfile in the Linker/Advanced/KeyFile properties page
2. Use sn.exe to sign the assembly as a post-build step

(I believe that using the [assembly:AssemblyKeyFileAttribute("MyKey.snk")] is equivalent to setting the keyfile in the project properties dialog).