How did Microsoft create assemblies that have circular references?

Posted by Drew Noakes on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Drew Noakes
Published on 2009-08-22T17:26:06Z Indexed on 2010/03/21 6:31 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 479

Filed under:

.NET

|

circular-references

|

base-class-library

|

bcl

|

assemblies

In the .NET BCL there are circular references between:

System.dll and System.Xml.dll
System.dll and System.Configuration.dll
System.Xml.dll and System.Configuration.dll

Here's a screenshot from .NET Reflector that shows what I mean:

How Microsoft created these assemblies is a mystery to me. Is a special compilation process required to allow this? I imagine something interesting is going on here.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about .NET

Apt-Get Update: failure to fetch; can't connect to any sources

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I realize there are dozens of "apt-get update: failure to fetch" questions (I read through all I could find), but my present circumstance is unique to 12.04 and it affects all sources; not just launchpad. Additionally, I've tried several different servers in Europe and the U.S. as well as the "main… >>> More
12.04: Apt-Get Update: failure to fetch; can't connect to any sources

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I realize there are dozens of "apt-get update: failure to fetch" questions (I read through all I could find), but my present circumstance is unique to 12.04 and it affects all sources; not just launchpad. Additionally, I've tried several different servers in Europe and the U.S. as well as the "main… >>> More
What's New in ASP.NET 4

as seen on Geeks with Blogs - Search for 'Geeks with Blogs'
The .NET Framework version 4 includes enhancements for ASP.NET 4 in targeted areas. Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express also include enhancements and new features for improved Web development. This document provides an overview of many of the new features that are included… >>> More
.NET Reflector 6, .NET Reflector Pro, TestDriven.NET, .NET 4.0 and Mono

as seen on Simple Talk - Search for 'Simple Talk'
By now you may well have noticed that .NET Reflector 6 and .NET Reflector Pro are out in the wild. The official launch happened today, although we actually put the software out last Thursday as part of a phased release plan to ensure that everything went smoothly today which, so far, it seems to have… >>> More
Redmine on Apache2 with Passenger issue

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I installed Redmine and run it in Apache2 with the Passenger module. Apache2 boots, Passenger module gets loaded and the Redmine welcome page is shown, however when trying to login or navigate to other parts of the Redmine site, the browser keeps loading and loading and loading forever, although the… >>> More

Related posts about circular-references

Circular references in TFS Database Edition

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm using TFS Database Edition to script a number of databases. Many of the databases have references between them - for example, view in database A might do select ... from B..TableX This works fine as long as database B is also a project in the solution. The problem comes in when I have objects… >>> More
Should I worry about circular references in Python?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Suppose I have code that maintains parent/children structure. In such a structure I get circular references, where child points to parent and parent points to child. Should I worry about them? I'm using Python 2.5. I am concerned that they will not be garbage collected and the application will eventually… >>> More
Database design: circular references

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have three database tables: users emails invitations Emails are linked to users by a user_id field. Invitations are also linked to users by a user_id field Emails can be created without an invitation, but every invitation must have an email. I would like to link the emails and invitations… >>> More
Efficient code to avoid circular references in c# object model

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have an excel like grid where values can be typed referencing other rows To check for circular references when a new value is entered, i traverse the tree and create a list of values referenced thus far, if the current value is found in this list, i return an error thus avoiding a circular reference… >>> More
getting around circular references in Delphi

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Is there a way of getting around circular unit references in Delphi? Maybe a newer version of delphi or some magic hack or something? My delphi project has 100 000+ lines of code mostly based on singleton classes. I need to refactor this, but that would mean several months of "circular reference"… >>> More