Dynamic Assembly Loading

Introduction

Dynamic assembly loading is the mechanism that discovers new BPUA functionality at runtime. It is used during initial platform boot and again during on-demand use case activation.

Main Participants

AssemblyLoadingProcessConfigurator - loads configuration and calculates the plugin root path.
DynamicAssembliesLoader - loads assemblies from a physical folder.
BPUAServiceAssemblyProcessor - examines loaded assemblies and registers discoverable services.
BPUAServicesRegistrar - resolves service keys and registers service types into the registry.
AssemblyTypesLoader - safely enumerates assembly types even when full type loading fails.

Why the Loader Is More Than File Discovery

Loading a DLL is only the first step. The platform must then answer additional questions:

Is this assembly relevant to BPUA?
Which services or handlers does it contain?
Under which keys should they be registered?
Has this assembly already been processed for this facet?

That is why the loading pipeline includes processors and registrars rather than stopping at physical assembly loading.

Configuration Dependency

The plugin root is taken from the PluginFolder setting in configuration. In development mode, the path can be treated differently from production mode, allowing the same runtime logic to work both from source-oriented and deployment-oriented folder layouts.

Summary

Dynamic assembly loading is the extensibility backbone of the platform. It is how BPUA turns an abstract plugin architecture into a concrete runtime discovery mechanism.

Table of Content BPUA Chapter Previous: Use Case Assemblies Next: UseCaseActivator

Business Process Programming in .Net
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