Is InternalsVisibleTo available to allow MonoTouch Unit Tests access to the internal of a MT Lib?

Question

Can you use the InternalsVisibleTo assembly attribute in a AssemblyInfo file of a MonoTouch Library to allow MonoTouch Unit Test (Touch.Unit) access to the internals of the MonoTouch library?

This is something that is great to use in non-MonoTouch world to allow testing of internals without having to jump through hoops. However I am not able to get it working with a MonoTouch Unit Test. So before I go any futher I figured I would ask if it is even possible, since this is an iOS Application that is the test runner, so not sure if an iOS application which is compiled to native code can even do this.

Answer 1

Yes, it should (or it's a bug) even if I do not recall trying it myself.

The key point is that [InternalsVisibleTo] is mostly a compiler trick and it is supported by the C# compiler (smcs) shipped with MonoTouch (as it's used inside the BCL). As such there's no reason why it should not work from a Touch.Unit-based application.

Now keep in mind that all other rules still applies. E.g. if the the managed linker is enabled when all unused code will be removed (even if marked with the attribute).