BRE Development – .NET based Actions reflect changes only after VS re-opening

Hello,

my name is Gordon and I’m quite new to the BizTalk Server Development (just
some months).

Currently I’m digging into BRE and especially the development of custom .NET
based Actions and programmatically calling BRE Policies.

Prerequisites: I have 2 VS C# projects, one contains C# code
which will get called from/as some custom BRE Actions and logs the rules
asserted facts. The other project is also a C# project referring the first
project and programmatically calling a BRE policy containing those rules with
the logging-actions. The assembly of the first project gets deployed to
GAC automatically after every successful built. So far no problem, the policy
gets called and the facts successfully logged as expected.

Problem: If I change the logging-actions code by
for example just logging each received facts twice the changes are not reflected
by the next test. Still the old assembly’s code is used. But if – and only if –
I re-open Visual Studio and deploy everthing again to GAC then the changes are
available.

If I set for the reference to the first project “copy local == true” and
permanently remove the first project’s assembly from GAC changes are reflected
always immediately. If I don’t remove the assembly from GAC always the old code
will be called (although I can see the GACs assembly is the new one).

Anyhow I must have the assembly registered in GAC being able to use the Rules
Composer and defining/changing additional actions based on my custom C#
code.

So what I am doing or interpreting wrong? Why are the change reflected only
after a Visual Studio restart? Does Visual Studio cache any assemblies? Is it
maybe the way to go during development to reference the assemblies from within
by testing project via “copy local == true” and removing the assembly from GAC
after having defining the rules?

Thanks

Gordon