Difference Between Assembly and DLL

.net assemblies
Pushkar picture Pushkar · Mar 23, 2009 · Viewed 48k times · Source

What is the difference between Assembly and a DLL? While sending the code to a remote client, should a DLL file be sent or should a Assembly be sent (When direct TCP connection is available between two)?

Answer

Jon Skeet picture Jon Skeet · Mar 23, 2009

An assembly is .NET's "minimum unit of deployment". Usually an assembly corresponds to a single file, but it doesn't have to - you can have multiple files, with one of them being the master which knows where all the other bits are.

Single-file assemblies are usually DLLs or EXE files. If you've got a normal class library and you just want to send it to the other side, the DLL is what you want. I'd only worry about more complicated scenarios as and when you run into them :)

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