How to Load an Assembly to AppDomain with all references recursively?

abatishchev_41956 0
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I want to load to a new AppDomain some assembly which has a complex references tree (MyDll.dll -> Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.dll -> Microsoft.Vbe.Interop.dll -> Office.dll -> stdole.dll)

As far as I understood, when an assembly is being loaded to AppDomain, its references would not be loaded automatically, and I have to load them manually. So when I do:

string dir = @"SomePath"; // different from AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
string path = System.IO.Path.Combine(dir, "MyDll.dll");

AppDomainSetup setup = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetupInformation;
setup.ApplicationBase = dir;
AppDomain domain = AppDomain.CreateDomain("SomeAppDomain", null, setup);

domain.Load(AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(path));

and got FileNotFoundException:

Could not load file or assembly 'MyDll, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

I think the key part is one of its dependencies.

Ok, I do next before domain.Load(AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(path));

foreach (AssemblyName refAsmName in Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom(path).GetReferencedAssemblies())
{
    domain.Load(refAsmName);
}

But got FileNotFoundException again, on another (referenced) assembly.

How to load all references recursively?

Do I have to create references tree before loading root assembly? How to get an assembly's references without loading it?

appdomain assemblies reflection .net c#
8 Answers

Once you pass the assembly instance back to the caller domain, the caller domain will try to load it! This is why you get the exception. This happens in your last line of code:

domain.Load(AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(path));

Thus, whatever you want to do with the assembly, should be done in a proxy class - a class which inherit MarshalByRefObject.

Take in count that the caller domain and the new created domain should both have access to the proxy class assembly. If your issue is not too complicated, consider leaving the ApplicationBase folder unchanged, so it will be same as the caller domain folder (the new domain will only load Assemblies it needs).

In simple code:

public void DoStuffInOtherDomain()
{
    const string assemblyPath = @"[AsmPath]";
    var newDomain = AppDomain.CreateDomain("newDomain");
    var asmLoaderProxy = (ProxyDomain)newDomain.CreateInstanceAndUnwrap(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().FullName, typeof(ProxyDomain).FullName);

    asmLoaderProxy.GetAssembly(assemblyPath);
}

class ProxyDomain : MarshalByRefObject
{
    public void GetAssembly(string AssemblyPath)
    {
        try
        {
            Assembly.LoadFrom(AssemblyPath);
            //If you want to do anything further to that assembly, you need to do it here.
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw new InvalidOperationException(ex.Message, ex);
        }
    }
}

If you do need to load the assemblies from a folder which is different than you current app domain folder, create the new app domain with specific dlls search path folder.

For example, the app domain creation line from the above code should be replaced with:

var dllsSearchPath = @"[dlls search path for new app domain]";
AppDomain newDomain = AppDomain.CreateDomain("newDomain", new Evidence(), dllsSearchPath, "", true);

This way, all the dlls will automaically be resolved from dllsSearchPath.

user_25467590

On your new AppDomain, try setting an AssemblyResolve event handler. That event gets called when a dependency is missing.

David_342080
Dustin_Campbell_569590
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