Emitting Dynamic Methods and Assemblies

This section describes a set of managed types in the System.Reflection.Emit namespace that allow a compiler or tool to emit metadata and Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) at run time and optionally generate a portable executable (PE) file on disk. Script engines and compilers are the primary users of this namespace. In this section, the functionality provided by the System.Reflection.Emit namespace is referred to as reflection emit.

Reflection emit provides the following capabilities:

• Define lightweight global methods at run time, using the DynamicMethod class, and execute them using delegates.

• Define assemblies at run time and then run them and/or save them to disk.

• Define assemblies at run time, run them, and then unload them and allow garbage collection to reclaim their resources.

• Define modules in new assemblies at run time and then run and/or save them to disk.

• Define types in modules at run time, create instances of these types, and invoke their methods.

• Define symbolic information for defined modules that can be used by tools such as debuggers and code profilers.

In addition to the managed types in the System.Reflection.Emit namespace, there are unmanaged metadata interfaces which are described in the Metadata Interfaces reference documentation. Managed reflection emit provides stronger semantic error checking and a higher level of abstraction of the metadata than the unmanaged metadata interfaces.

Another useful resource for working with metadata and MSIL is the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) documentation, especially "Partition II: Metadata Definition and Semantics" and "Partition III: CIL Instruction Set". The documentation is available online on MSDN and at the Ecma Web site.

In This Section

• Reflection Emit Abstractions
  Lists and describes the reflection emit classes you can use to define assemblies and types, methods and method parameters, events, constructors, properties, and so forth.

• Collectible Assemblies for Dynamic Type Generation
  Describes the creation and use of dynamic assemblies that can be unloaded and reclaimed by garbage collection when none of the types they contain are reachable by executing code.

• Reflection Emit Dynamic Method Scenarios
  Describes the definition and use of lightweight dynamic methods.

• Reflection Emit Dynamic Assembly Scenarios
  Describes the core reflection emit scenario, emitting a dynamic module defined in a dynamic assembly.

• Reflection Emit Application Scenarios
  Describes the application scenarios supported by reflection emit, including executing a script in a Web browser, executing a script in an ASP.NET page, and compiling a regular expression.

• Security Issues in Reflection Emit
  Describes security issues related to creating dynamic assemblies using reflection emit.

• Using Reflection Emit
  Describes fundamental tasks you can perform using reflection emit, with how-to topics on generating lightweight dynamic methods and emitting generic types and methods.

• More Information About Reflection Emit
  Describes other documentation related to reflection emit.

Reference

• OpCodes
  Catalogs the MSIL instruction codes you can use to build method bodies.

• System.Reflection.Emit
  Contains managed classes used to emit dynamic methods, assemblies, and types.

• Type
  Describes the Type class, which represents types in managed reflection and reflection emit, and which is key to the use of these technologies.

• System.Reflection
  Contains managed classes used to explore metadata and managed code.

Related Sections

• Reflection in the .NET Framework
  Explains how to explore metadata and managed code.

• Assemblies in the Common Language Runtime
  Provides an overview of assemblies in the .NET Framework.