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")

For a practical use of an embedded resource stream, see loading appsettings.json in Xamarin Forms, which passes the stream to the configuration builder.

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.