Embedding DLLs in a compiled executable

Question

Is it possible to embed a pre-existing DLL into a compiled C# executable (so that you only have one file to distribute)? If it is possible, how would one go about doing it?

Normally, I'm cool with just leaving the DLLs outside and having the setup program handle everything, but there have been a couple of people at work who have asked me this and I honestly don't know.

Answer 1

I highly recommend to use Costura.Fody - by far the best and easiest way to embed resources in your assembly. It's available as NuGet package.

Install-Package Costura.Fody 

After adding it to the project, it will automatically embed all references that are copied to the output directory into your main assembly. You might want to clean the embedded files by adding a target to your project:

Install-CleanReferencesTarget 

You'll also be able to specify whether to include the pdb's, exclude certain assemblies, or extracting the assemblies on the fly. As far as I know, also unmanaged assemblies are supported.

Update

Currently, some people are trying to add support for DNX.

Update 2

For the lastest Fody version, you will need to have MSBuild 16 (so Visual Studio 2019). Fody version 4.2.1 will do MSBuild 15. (reference: Fody is only supported on MSBuild 16 and above. Current version: 15)

Answer 2

Just right-click your project in Visual Studio, choose Project Properties -> Resources -> Add Resource -> Add Existing File… And include the code below to your App.xaml.cs or equivalent.

public App() {     AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve +=new ResolveEventHandler(CurrentDomain_AssemblyResolve); }  System.Reflection.Assembly CurrentDomain_AssemblyResolve(object sender, ResolveEventArgs args) {     string dllName = args.Name.Contains(',') ? args.Name.Substring(0, args.Name.IndexOf(',')) : args.Name.Replace(".dll","");      dllName = dllName.Replace(".", "_");      if (dllName.EndsWith("_resources")) return null;      System.Resources.ResourceManager rm = new System.Resources.ResourceManager(GetType().Namespace + ".Properties.Resources", System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly());      byte[] bytes = (byte[])rm.GetObject(dllName);      return System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(bytes); } 

Here's my original blog post: http://codeblog.larsholm.net/2011/06/embed-dlls-easily-in-a-net-assembly/