Application Domains, Reflection, and Metadata

Abstract

The power and flexibility of the Microsoft .NET Framework is enhanced by the ability to inspect and manipulate types and metadata at runtime. The recipes in this chapter describe how to use application domains, reflection, and metadata. Specifically, the recipes in this chapter describe how to do the following:

• Create application domains into which you can load assemblies that are isolated from the rest of your application (recipe 3-1)

• Create types that have the capability to cross application domain boundaries (recipe 3-2) and types that are guaranteed to be unable to cross application domain boundaries (recipe 3-4)

• Control the loading of assemblies and the instantiation of types in local and remote application domains (recipes 3-3, 3-5, 3-6, and 3-7)

• Pass simple configuration data between application domains (recipe 3-8)