What Is Myassembly.Xmlserializers.Dll Generated For

What is MyAssembly.XmlSerializers.dll generated for?

In .NET implementation, the XmlSerializer generates a temporary assembly for serializing/deserializing your classes (for performance reasons). It can either be generated on the fly (but it takes time on every execution), or it can be pregenerated during compilation and saved in this assembly you are asking about.

You can change this behaviour in project options (tab Compile -> Advanced Compile Options -> Generate serialization assemblies, Auto or On, respectively). The corresponding element in the project file is GenerateSerializationAssemblies, for example, <GenerateSerializationAssemblies>Auto</GenerateSerializationAssemblies>.

MyAssembly.XmlSerializers.dll not generated

The problem was the WCF Test Client Version.

SGEN XMLSerializer - should be .XMLSerializers.dll added as a reference to the current project or to the GAC?

If you don't use the /type argument for sgen.exe then it will generate de/serialization code for all public types in the assembly. Note that the [Serializable] attribute is not used in XML serialization. I doubt you'd want this, use /type to keep the generated assembly small.

Adding a reference is not necessary, Xml serialization always tries an Assembly.Load() on the .XmlSerializers.dll assembly anyway. Plus, you'll never reference the generated XmlSerializationWriterXxx and XmlSerializationReaderXxx classes directly in your code. It does have one advantage, the build system will automatically copy the assembly when you include the project in a solution.

Installing it in the GAC is only worth considering when different apps serialize and deserialize the XML file. You can provide other apps with the .XmlSerializers.dll assembly by copying the assembly by hand as well. Which is a bit error prone, use your own judgment here. Check the previous paragraph for a way to automate the copy.

How to use auto generated Assembly.XmlSerializers.dll created by Visual Studio 2008

Auto generated serializes will reduce the performance. Better to go with Pre-generated XmlSerializers to Increase Performance. Using sgen or xgen generate the assembly at build time.

eg: Sgen.exe /t:MyType /a:MyAssembly.dll

generated serializer assembly MyAssembly.XmlSerializers.dll should be added as reference to project or add it in GAC.

Why does MSBuild put *.XmlSerializers.dll assembly in the root folder of published web application?

You don't need this assembly unless you will be serializing and deserializing types from your assembly. This assembly is generated by the compiler to save your application from having to generate it once it is up and running.

If you intend on doing serialization, keep the assembly as it will help with performance. If you don't intend on doing any serialization then feel free to ignore it or remove it altogether.

For more information about this practice please see XML Serializer Generator Tool:

The XML Serializer Generator creates
an XML serialization assembly for
types in a specified assembly in order
to improve the startup performance of
a XmlSerializer when it serializes or
deserializes objects of the specified
types.

Does myAssembly.xmlSerializer.dll always get generated?

Every time you call the XmlSerializer constructor it will check the type you are trying to serialize and it will generate a temporary assembly. If the assembly already exists it will reuse it. So if your web service is a classic ASMX service it will use XmlSerializer on every request, no matter the return type. These temporary assemblies are part of the serialization process and in my opinion you shouldn't worry too much about them.

Could not load MyAssembly.XmlSerializers.dll. The system cannot find the file specified

The situation was a little trickier than I had expected. The XMLSerializers DLL for that assembly seems to be essential for authentication in my solution, and just "Press[ing] F5 to continue running until the real problem occurs" did not lead to some unrelated error.

I have not been able to completely understand what the underlying issue is, but it seems that there is a problem creating the DLL dynamically after Visual Studio is upgraded.

The way I have worked around the issue is by running the sgen tool to manually create the serializers and setting the flag "Generate Serialization Assemblies" to Off. The process can be automated by adding a post-build instruction to run the tool.

That being said, I have no idea why this issue comes up in the first place, as I am certain that I did not open the project in VS2012.

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