[Mono-devel-list] Use of ILDASM

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello,

> I just want to know if it is "illegal" to use ILDASM to open MS.net 
> assembly.
> 
> We are trying to make mono compile Regex assembly compatible with MS 
> runtime.  The problem is,  mono implementation of regex do not seem to 
> use the same "factory framework" than MS do.   
> 
> For now I restricted myself to the Object Browser (can view the 
> interface of the assembly) but ildasm can prove very usefull to 
> understand the framework used by MS.
> 
> Note that in no way we intend to look at MS IL to build our ILCompiler.

Avoid using ILDASM at any costs.

First because the only publicly available API (as far as I can
remember) is the flag that you pass to the Regex engine to compile to
IL.

You should avoid reverse engineering their code, because it gives you
less implementation freedom (the only thing you really get to enjoy
when implementing someone else's API) and then you can put your code in
jeopardy in terms of having someone claiming that you copied their code. 

So as a principle, in Mono we avoid using ILdasm to look at their
dissasembled code.

Miguel.