Enable assemblies to be loaded on command about costura

[GeertvanHorrik]

For now I have a workaround:

var assemblyLoader = Type.GetType("Costura.AssemblyLoader");
var assembliesAsResourcesFieldInfo = assemblyLoader.GetField("assemblyNames", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
var assembliesAsResources = (Dictionary<string, string>) assembliesAsResourcesFieldInfo.GetValue(null);

var symbolsAsResourcesFieldInfo = assemblyLoader.GetField("symbolNames", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
var symbolsAsResources = (Dictionary<string, string>)symbolsAsResourcesFieldInfo.GetValue(null);

var readFromEmbeddedResourcesMethodInfo = assemblyLoader.GetMethod("ReadFromEmbeddedResources", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
foreach (var assemblyKeyValuePair in assembliesAsResources)
{
    Log.Debug("Forcing load from Costura packed assembly '{0}'", assemblyKeyValuePair.Key);

    readFromEmbeddedResourcesMethodInfo.Invoke(null, new object[] { assembliesAsResources, symbolsAsResources, assemblyKeyValuePair.Key });
}

[distantcam]

Costura was designed to package dependencies into a single exe and automatically handle loading those assemblies as the program runs. Costura is designed to do this seamlessly and automatically.

What you're wanting to do is to manually do what Costura does automatically. I think in that case Costura is not the solution and you should implement your own form of dependency injection, which seems to be what you've done with the work-around.

[GeertvanHorrik]

Costura does exactly what I need:

Pack assemblies which are normally being optimized away by the C# compiler. With IncludeAssemblies I can still force these assemblies to be included and then can extract them again if I have to. I don't understand why this is a "no-go". I can even send you a pull request ;-)

[distantcam]

If Costura does exactly what you need then there's no need for a PR.

Manual assembly loading is not the goal of Costura. Costura is for automatic assembly loading.

This has the same problem as issue #27, specifically how do you call into Costura? There would have to be a reference assembly added as a placeholder, and calls to that placeholder would have to be redirected as part of the code weaving.

Since you already have a functioning work-around I don't see why this extra code needs to be added to Costura, increasing it's complexity, when it's already a rather complex project.

[GeertvanHorrik]

A good example is a type which you need during deserialization. The types are not directly used, but must be loaded in order to be used. Then you can discuss whether this must be handled by the serialization engine, but this is unfortunately not in my control. Preloading the assemblies with costura is.

I am just looking for a simple option:

costura loadAssembliesOnStartup="true" (false by default)

which just loops through the list of assemblies and loads them. I don't think that will make it over-complex.