Specify the search path for DllImport in .NET

by

Call SetDllDirectory with your additional DLL paths before you call into the imported function for the first time.

P/Invoke signature:

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool SetDllDirectory(string lpPathName);

To set more than one additional DLL search path, modify the PATH environment variable, e.g.:

static void AddEnvironmentPaths(string[] paths)
{
    string path = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PATH") ?? string.Empty;
    path += ";" + string.Join(";", paths);

    Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", path);
}

There’s more info about the DLL search order here on MSDN.

Updated 2013/07/30:

Updated version of the above using Path.PathSeparator:

static void AddEnvironmentPaths(IEnumerable<string> paths)
{
    var path = new[] { Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PATH") ?? string.Empty };

    string newPath = string.Join(Path.PathSeparator.ToString(), path.Concat(paths));

    Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", newPath);
}

More Related Contents:

  1. How can I determine if a .NET assembly was built for x86 or x64?
  2. What is the difference between System.Speech.Recognition and Microsoft.Speech.Recognition?
  3. .Net HttpWebRequest.GetResponse() raises exception when http status code 400 (bad request) is returned
  4. How exactly does the “Specific Version” property of an assembly reference work in Visual Studio?
  5. How to Consume WCF Service with Android
  6. Best way to hide a window from the Alt-Tab program switcher?
  7. “The resource cannot be found.” error when there is a “dot” at the end of the url
  8. What’s the best method to pass parameters to SQLCommand?
  9. IIS7 does not start my Exe file by Process Start
  10. Maximum value of maxRequestLength?
  11. How can I read/write app.config settings at runtime without using user settings?
  12. Analyze colors of an Image
  13. How to validate smtp credentials before sending mail?
  14. Which Dependency Injection Tool Should I Use? [closed]
  15. Can the DebuggerDisplay attribute be applied to types one doesn’t own?
  16. Memory layout of a .NET array
  17. Possible memoryleak in ConcurrentBag?
  18. How do I merge multiple .net assemblies into a single assembly?
  19. Entity Framework is Too Slow. What are my options? [closed]
  20. Horrible redraw performance of the DataGridView on one of my two screens
  21. How to locate fuslogvw.exe on my machine?
  22. T4 without Visual Studio?
  23. Get Raw json string in Newtonsoft.Json Library
  24. How to test a WPF user interface?
  25. Standard Windows menu bars in Windows Forms
  26. What’s the purpose of the Tuple(T1)/Singleton in .net?
  27. Difference between TargetType=”controlType” and TargetType=”{x:Type controlType}”
  28. How can I determine if a file is an image file in .NET?
  29. Using a variable for table name in ‘From’ clause in SQL Server 2008
  30. Is the CLR a virtual machine?

Leave a Comment