How to obfuscate class library that references Autofac?

Question

I am using Autofac in a project that is being obfuscated using Dotfuscator. the dotfuscator fails saying it cannot find mscorlib version 2.0.5.0

Is there a way to tell Dotfuscator how to obfuscate Autofac with portable Dll?

Is Autofac team planning releasing autofac with reference to .NET 4.0?

Any other suggestions?

Answer 1

I don't know what version of Dotfuscator you're using, but it does seem that at least as of 4.9.9000 they "know" about Portable Class Libraries. If you aren't at that version and can't upgrade, you might need to contact Dotfuscator support to find out a solution. (Another question of similar nature also pointed to updating Dotfuscator as the answer.)

A similar sort of issue occurs with FxCop analysis and SecAnnotate. To get around those issues with those tools, you need to tell them to ignore version information on certain assemblies (like System.Core and mscorlib). You may need to use an option like that on Dotfuscator if such a thing exists.

PCL can also cause challenges on machines that don't have all the latest .NET patches. Make sure you're patched up.

There is no plan to release an Autofac tailored just to .NET 4.x Autofac is a Portable Class Library so it can support multiple platforms without conditional compilation, making for easier testing and development. It switched away from platform-specific builds as of 3.0 and there's no plan to go back.

If upgrading Dotfuscator and patching your machine doesn't fix the issue, your best bet is to find the Dotfuscator mechanism for ignoring assembly version.