Embedding one dll inside another as an embedded resource and then calling it from my code

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Once you’ve embedded the third-party assembly as a resource, add code to subscribe to the AppDomain.AssemblyResolve event of the current domain during application start-up. This event fires whenever the Fusion sub-system of the CLR fails to locate an assembly according to the probing (policies) in effect. In the event handler for AppDomain.AssemblyResolve, load the resource using Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream and feed its content as a byte array into the corresponding Assembly.Load overload. Below is how one such implementation could look like in C#:

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve += (sender, args) =>
{
    var resName = args.Name + ".dll";    
    var thisAssembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();    
    using (var input = thisAssembly.GetManifestResourceStream(resName))
    {
        return input != null 
             ? Assembly.Load(StreamToBytes(input))
             : null;
    }
};

where StreamToBytes could be defined as:

static byte[] StreamToBytes(Stream input) 
{
    var capacity = input.CanSeek ? (int) input.Length : 0;
    using (var output = new MemoryStream(capacity))
    {
        int readLength;
        var buffer = new byte[4096];

        do
        {
            readLength = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            output.Write(buffer, 0, readLength);
        }
        while (readLength != 0);

        return output.ToArray();
    }
}

Finally, as a few have already mentioned, ILMerge may be another option to consider, albeit somewhat more involved.

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