Extract & Grab Resources From Dot Net Assembly in VisualBasic.Net



Introduction

This tip demonstrates how to retrieve resources from a Dot Net Assembly and the purpose is to share and learn.

Background

Recently, for fun only and to do something useful in my spare time, I was looking for a library to retrieve all resource files from a Dot Net Assembly in VisualBasic.Net?. Actually it is not quite difficult to handle resources files from Windows Form’s project and there is so many ways to deal with resources where you can store several type of files such as but not limited to........ dll, exe, text, image, xml ...and.......so on. The question was how I can do it?

Why Shall I Use Resources

May be it is seems a silly question for some coders but actually it is not, because I saw so many questions here and there asking about resources, how to extract and how to handle it. Anyhow my understanding to such a question is quite simple, resources represents data might needed by an application and to be stored or embedded directly into your application or by any other means.
however, since there is no a library written particularly to Visual Basic.net, I have decided to give it a try then started read here and there and finally was able to do it, and here it is the library, it is dedicated to all VisualBasic.net community.

Classes of The Library

These are the class and interface which make up the resources Grabber:
IGrabber
Represents, the base interface of the Grabber Class.
Grabber
Represents, the class that used to retrieve resources from an Assembly. Please refer to the attached file
Delegates
Represents, the delegates will occur as required by the Grabber class. 

Grabber Class

The idea behind the grabber Class is to load an assembly and extract any resources within it and save under your application directory.

Grabber Properties

Events:
Represents, EventHandlerList property used to store Grabber’s Delegates; it can not be changed by derived classes.
Refer to: Declare Custom Events to Conserve Memory
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/yt1k2w4e.aspx
Also, you may refer to my Article in CodeProjet; Add Custom Event to a Class in VB.NET
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/229122/Add-Custom-Event-To-A-Class-in-VB-Net
Folder:
Represents: - String property used to gets or set the location where the grabbed resources to be saved, it can be changed by derived classes.
File:
Represents: - String property used to gets/set the assembly file name used to grab resources from it and can be changed by derived classes.
Search:
Represents: - Flag property to check sub-folders of Assembly file.

Grabber Events

GrabCompleted:
Represents, a Custom Event occurs when grab is completed.
GrabStarted:
Represents, the Custom Event occurs when grab is started.
GrabberException:
Represents, Custom Event occurs when an exception is thrown during grabbing.

Grabber Methods

Grab:
Represents, public method used to grab or retrieve resources from an Assembly.
GrabResources:
Represents, overloaded friend methods used to load an assembly and grab or retrieve resources from it.  
CancelGrabbing:
Represents, public method used to cancel or stop grab operation
GetFileName:
Represents, public shared method to get file name from a string.



For Further details, Please download the source code which shows how to do it ……. Enjoy it....I hope!!!!!

References

  1. http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/229122/Add-Custom-Event-To-A-Class-in-VB-Net
  2. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/system.threading.parameterizedthreadstart
  3. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/yt1k2w4e.aspx
  4. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/70s77c20%28v=vs.110%29.aspx
  5. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837908
  6. http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/13573/Extracting-Embedded-Images-From-An-Assembly
  7. http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dot_net_resources_extract.html

Points of Interest

I knew the library is not perfect and almost it has been collected from my readings and studding of different similar codes in the network, but the benefits behind such a code is; now I have a good idea how to protect the dot net library and hope to share with you ASAP


Download

you may downlaod the source code from the following link

Link 1 @ Code Project

Link 2 @ vb4arab

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