Tech Tip: Working with .NET Strong Names

This Tech Tip first appeared in Imaging News June 2006.

The .NET library is assigned a cryptographic signature, called a strong name. The strong name can be uniquely identified and installed to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) to allow multiple applications to reference and use it.

This tech tip describes how to work with strong names in Snowbound Software’s RasterMaster for .NET imaging SDK.

To work with strong names, locate the strong name tool, sn.exe, on your computer.

For example, the following shows a directory path where the sn.exe file is located:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\SDK\v1.1\Bin\sn.exe

The strong name tool helps sign assemblies with strong names. sn.exe provides options for key management, signature generation, and signature verification.

The following are some commands to use when working with the strong name:

To verify the strong name, use the following command:

sn -v sbdnet.dll

To display the public key information, use the following command:

sn -Tp sbdnet.dll

To skip strong name verification, use the following command:

sn -Vr sbdnet.dll

For more information about using a strong name, please refer to the Microsoft .NET documentation.