Tools for Control Authoring and Related Tasks

This book refers to various tools that are used for building controls, creating resources, viewing assemblies, and performing other tasks. Most of these tools ship with the .NET Framework SDK. If you are using a development environment such as Visual Studio .NET, you will generally not use the SDK tools directly because the development environment integrates them into its own feature set.

Tools in the .NET Framework SDK

The following list describes the tools from the .NET Framework SDK that are commonly utilized by control developers. These tools are described in detail in the .NET Framework SDK documentation.

Al.exe

The Assembly Linker allows you to embed resources into satellite assemblies or link resources to an assembly.
Csc.exe

The C# compiler allows you to build managed assemblies from C# source code.
DbgClr.exe

The Microsoft CLR Debugger allows you to debug managed applications and components by using a graphical user interface.
GacUtil.exe

The Global Assembly Cache (GAC) utility allows you to add assemblies to the GAC and to view and manage the contents of the GAC.
IlDasm.exe

The Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) Disassembler allows you to view the MSIL contained within an assembly as generated by a compiler.
ResGen.exe

The Resource File Generator allows you to convert .txt or .resx text files into binary .resources files that can be embedded as resources within assemblies.
Sn.exe

The Strong Name tool allows you to generate test key pairs for signing assemblies.
Vbc.exe

The Visual Basic .NET compiler allows you to build managed assemblies from Visual Basic .NET source code.
Wsdl.exe

The Web Services Description Language (WSDL) tool allows you to generate proxy classes for accessing XML Web services from your applications and components.

FxCop Tool for Checking Compliance with Design Guidelines

The FxCop tool is provided by the .NET Framework team for checking whether the classes in your assemblies comply with the design guidelines of the .NET Framework so that they appear as a natural extension of the .NET Framework. This tool does not ship with the .NET Framework SDK but can be downloaded from the GotDotNet Web site (http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/libraries). FxCop is still under development. The .NET Framework team continues to update it regularly with improvements and additional features. As a result, FxCop might report a certain number of spurious messages. In general, the tool goes a long way in identifying potential issues with your assemblies. Furthermore, you can customize FxCop with your own set of rules.

The design guidelines used by the .NET Framework team are available as a white paper on MSDN titled "Design Guidelines for Class Library Developers." The white paper is periodically updated by the .NET Framework team. The latest version of the document is available as part of the sample files associated with this book. Future updates to this document will be provided on MSDN and on the GotDotNet Web site.