windows - How to load plugins in .NET?

Question

I'd like to provide some way of creating dynamically loadable plugins in my software. Typical way to do this is using the LoadLibrary WinAPI function to load a dll and calling GetProcAddress to get an pointer to a function inside that dll.

My question is how do I dynamically load a plugin in C#/.Net application?

Answer 1

As of .NET 3.5 there's a formalized, baked-in way to create and load plugins from a .NET application. It's all in the System.AddIn namespace. For more information you can check out this article on MSDN: Add-ins and Extensibility