Single assemby in using statement

Question

I'm working on app which uses a lot of external assemblies (newtonsoft.dll, Yahoo Yui compressor.dll, fleck.dll etc). In each c# file I need to add using statement with all those assemblies. Is it possible to create my own assembly (i.e. LIBRARY.dll) containing all the dll's and refer only to this in all c# files?

Answer 1

No. Firstly, using directives refer to namespaces, not assemblies (assembly references are defined at the project level). Secondly: you almost certainly don't actually need all of them in every file. But: you can create a new-file-template with the ones you are likely to need. But frankly it is usually easier to either copy/paste them, or just add them when they are needed. In the IDE, this is as simple as pressing ctrl+.,ret after a type name that doesn't resolve... so MySpecialTypectrl+.,ret should add the missing using directive to resolve MySpecialType.

Answer 2

using does not refer to assembly, but to namespace. So the answer is "no"...

using System; // you are using items in the System namespace
using System.IO; // you are using items in the System.IO namespace

Answer 3

No. Usages of individual types need to be resolved to the namespaces where they are defined in. So, you will still need to include the resolution paths in your usings.