[Mono-list] Question about attributes

[Jonathan Pryor]

On Wed, 2004-04-28 at 16:46, Xiii29 wrote:
> I've question about attributes in Mono. I would like to comment my
> assemblys by using attributes (meta-attributes...) and i'm wondering if
> there is "rules" (or preconisations...) about which attributes using...

I'm pretty sure I don't understand your question at all.  But I'll take
a shot anyway...

To use an assembly-level attribute, you need to explicitly specify what
the attribute is associated with.  For example:

	[assembly: AssemblyTitle ("my title")]
	[assembly: AssemblyVersion ("1.0.*")]

The "assembly:" indicates that the attribute applies to the assembly. 
Otherwise it would apply to the next member listed in the file
(delegate, class, structure, etc.) or generate an error (namespaces
don't support attributes).  Similar things can be done for other
elements; for example: "return:" can be used to place an attribute on
the return type of a method, while normally the attribute applies to the
method itself:

	[SomeAttribute ("applies to MyMethod")]
	[return: SomeAttribute ("applies to the return type")]
	int MyMethod () {return 42;}

As for general rules...  You can only use attributes which can be
applied to an assembly; that is, the attribute you're trying to use must
itself have an AttributeUsage attribute with AttributeTargets.Assembly
specified.  Not all attributes do this; the DllImport attribute, for
example, can only be applied to methods.

Aside from that, the normal attribute restrictions apply.  Which means
that attribute positional and named parameters can only be: one of the
CLS-compliant built-in types (bool, byte, char, double, float, int,
long, short, string); System.Type, an enum type; System.Object; or an
array of one of the previous types.

See a good C# book, or MSDN, or google, for more information.

 - Jon