Registering your custom assemblies using Visual Studio Data Lake Tools is easy, just right click your U-SQL C# Class Library project, click “Register Assembly”, fill in the details and your assembly gets published and created in your U-SQL Catalog.

But what if you want to script this process to automate your deployments? That is not documented yet and as I follow the principle that we should be able to rebuild the whole environment with a press on the button, I found out how to do this.

Step 0 – Prerequisites
Install latest version of Azure PowerShell. The PowerShell script below won’t work with an older version. http://aka.ms/webpi-azps

Step 1 – Build your dll from Visual Studio.
We need the dll of your custom assembly, create it by right clicking your U-SQL Class Library project and choose to Build. You can see where the dll has been created on disk in the output window.

Step 2 – Create a U-SQL job file that will create the assembly.
Modify the U-SQL script below and store it in a file somewhere locally on disk. Name it createAssembly.usql

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USE DATABASE yourUsqlCatalog;

 

CREATE ASSEMBLY IF NOT EXISTS yourCSharp

FROM @”/Assemblies/yourCSharp.dll”;

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Step 3 – Upload the assembly to your ADLS and execute the U-SQL job using PowerShell.
Enter values for the variables in the PowerShell script below and execute it.

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#Variables; modify 

$dataLakeStoreName = “yourAdlsAccount”

$dataLakeAnalyticsName = “yourAdlaAccount”

$assemblyLocalPath = “c:\yourCSharp.dll” #step 1

$usqlScriptLocalPath = “c:\createAssembly.usql” #step 2

$assemblyAdlsPath = “/Assemblies/yourCSharp.dll” #Assemblies folder will be created if not exists

$azureSubscriptionId = “00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000”

 

#Login (login pop up appears)

Login-AzureRmAccount

 

#Connect to the Azure Subscription in which your ADLA Catalog exists 

Set-AzureRMContext -SubscriptionId $azureSubscriptionId 

 

#Import dll to ADLS

Import-AzureRmDataLakeStoreItem -AccountName $dataLakeStoreName -Path $assemblyLocalPath -Destination $assemblyAdlsPath

 

#Submit new job to ADLA (createAssembly.usql)

$job = Submit-AzureRmDataLakeAnalyticsJob -Name “Create Assembly” -AccountName $dataLakeAnalyticsName –ScriptPath $usqlScriptLocalPath -DegreeOfParallelism 1

 

 While (($t = Get-AzureRmDataLakeAnalyticsJob -AccountName $dataLakeAnalyticsName -JobId $job.JobId).State -ne “Ended”){

     Write-Host “Job status: “$t.State“…”

     Start-Sleep -seconds 10

 }

 

 Get-AzureRmDataLakeAnalyticsJob -AccountName $dataLakeAnalyticsName -JobId $job.JobId

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Step 4 – Validate.
Validate if your dll is uploaded to a folder in your ADLS called “Assemblies”, and next, if your assembly is created in your U-SQL Catalog with Visual Studio Server Explorer (Azure).

Step 5 – Reference your new assembly in your U-SQL scripts.
You can now start using your assembly by referencing it in the first lines of code in your U-SQL script.

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USE DATABASE yourUsqlCatalog;

 

REFERENCE ASSEMBLY yourCSharp;

…

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