AssemblySignature, by Arseny Kapoulkine (arseny.kapoulkine@gmail.com)
This is the distribution of AssemblySignature package. It is an MSBuild extension to make .NET assemblies depend on the reference assembly signatures (public classes/members) instead of assembly files. This reduces redundant rebuilds - there is no need to rebuild dependent projects if only private implementation changes.
Installation process:
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Copy AssemblySignature folder to your project so that you can redistribute it along with project files
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Modify all csproj/fsproj files: find tag that references either Microsoft.FSharp.Targets or Microsoft.CSharp.Targets, and change the import path to point to the file inside AssemblySignature folder
How it works:
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After each build a signature file is generated alongside assembly file. It works by loading assembly in reflection-only context, and generating MD5 hash for all types with their members, fields, properties, attributes and other metadata. Two hashes are calculated: one for public types/members and another one for internal types/members if the assembly has InternalsVisibleTo attribute. For F#, FSharpOptimizationData resource contents is also included in the signature, since it contains information for inline functions.
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Before building the assembly, a dependency file is generated. It consists of signatures of all references. If signature file is found alongside the assembly, its contents is used with appropriate public/internal handling; otherwise file timestamp is used (i.e. build dependencies are correct even if signature files are not generated).
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CoreCompile targets are modified to depend on dependency file instead of reference files (this is why Microsoft.*.Targets files need to be modified).