Need help finding a dll

Question

I just want to use HttpUtility.UrlEncode(myString). The project is .NET 3.5. But I can't find the corresponding dll. In .NET 4.0 it seems to be in System.web. But I'm not sure where it's located for 3.5

Can someone show me where I can download the corresponding dlls?

(And also, I would really prefer it if I don't need to download an installation package, since that ususally results in GAC-ing the stuff. I hate when stuff gets GAC-ed, it just increases the risk of not catching missing references after deploying in an environment where the installation package hasn't been run.)

(Why is it always like this with .net? ...So hard to find the proper dll. With java I don't remember it being that tricky to find the right jar file. But with .net it's often a mystery which update, framework installation etc things are located in)

edit: Ok, this is embarrassing, I thought the assembly was missing from my framework... but turns out it was in the "add reference" list all along, it just wasn't sorted on the name column of the component. ...thanks.

Answer 1

Still System.Web according to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.httputility(v=vs.90).aspx

Namespace: System.Web Assembly: System.Web (in System.Web.dll)

Supported in: 4.5, 4, 3.5, 3.0, 2.0, 1.1, 1.0

You don't need to worry about downloading or installing anything in the GAC, as it's already part of the framework. If you have the relevant .NET framework installed, it'll be there.

Answer 2

I thought of marking this post down as the answer could have been found by simply Googling the class and method. It's not difficult at all to find it. You search MSDN for the class name and it will tell which assembly and which namespace support the class. In fact it's right here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1e55w41w.aspx.

Give me .NET over Java any day. VS works out of the box first time. Java doesn't. Having to spend days, possibly weeks getting the development environment set up, and then scrounging what components I can to produce something that takes twice as long to develop, is not my idea of a pleasant experience.