[Mono-devel-list] Re: Potential GAC implementation ideas.

[Chris Day]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Hogg [mailto:jonathan at onegoodidea.com] 
> What additional functionality does the GAC implement? I don't 
> mean specific details, I mean broad purpose?

To keep track references on shared dll's.  So if MyProg installs
SharedFoo.dll and SharedBar.dll into the GAC then there will be 1
reference to each dll.  When I uninstall these dll's from the GAC they
will be deleted since there is only one reference.

However if before I uninstall MyProg, there is a second program YourProg
which installs SharedFoo.dll as well.  This means that there is 2
references to SharedFoo.dll and 1 reference to SharedBar.dll.  If MyProg
gets uninstalled only SharedBar.dll get deleted from the GAC, but
SharedFoo.dll still has 1 reference (from YourProg) so it doesn't get
deleted.