Get Embedded Resource Stream in .NET Core

In order to retrieve an embedded resource in .NET Core, we first need to understand how the resource name is composed. It’s got 3 elements, all joined by dots (.):

• the root namespace
• the extended or file namespace
• the file name

Let’s take a concrete example. We have a project (assembly) with a root namespace MyApp.Core. Inside our project we’ve got a folder + subfolder like Assets > Images. And inside of that, we have an embedded resource called logo.png. In this case:

• the root namespace: MyApp.Core
• the extended namespace: Assets.Images
• the file name logo.png

Join them using . and you get: MyApp.Core.Assets.Images.logo.png.

Once you know the resource identifier, all you need is a reference to the assembly containing the actual resource. We can easily obtain that off of any class we have defined in that assembly – assuming we have a class MyClass:

typeof(MyClass).Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("MyApp.Core.Assets.Images.logo.png")

Retrieve list with all embedded resources in an assembly

If you can’t find the resource, it’s usually because of one of the following:

• you’ve got the identifier wrong
• you haven’t marked the file as an Embedded Resource
• you are looking in the wrong assembly

To help troubleshoot, you can list all the embedded resources in an assembly and go from there. To do so:

typeof(MyClass).Assembly.GetManifestResourceNames()

This will return a simple string[] and you can easily use it in the Immediate Window for debugging purposes.