I am new to reflection and am hitting a brick wall trying to understand types.
What exactly does Assembly mean and what does Assembly.GetTypes() return? Also if you call something like GetGenericArguments() on a 'type' you get from the GetTypes() command, what does that do exactly?
Thanks
Assembly is a dll or exe file in this case.
Assembly.GetTypes() returns all types in that assembly.
If you have a generic type
public class MyType<T, V>
{
}
Type.GetGenericArguments returns the T and the V.
Calling Assembly.GetTypes() returns all the types and interfaces that are defined in the assembly.
Calling Type.GetGenericArguments() returns all the generic parameters specified for a generic type. This might not be the clearest explanation, an example would help:
var type1 = typeof(Func<>);
type1.GetGenericArguments(); // [ typeof(TResult) ]
var type2 = typeof(Func<string>);
type2.GetGenericArguments(); // [ typeof(String) ]
var type3 = typeof(Tuple<string, int, bool>);
type3.GetGenericArguments(); // [ typeof(String), typeof(Int32), typeof(Boolean) ]
Assemblies contain code that runs, or stores information about objects i.e. classes/structures which have methods/properties/events.
A type is a class that describes other classes.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.type%28v=vs.71%29.aspx
An assembly in .NET is a *.dll file which is produced by compiling a Class Library (and other) project types
Assembly.GetTypes() returns an array of all the Types in that assembly, which is to say all the Classes & Structs inside the assembly.
Further Reading
reflectioncodeguru.com/csharp/csharp/cs_misc/reflection/article.php/c4257