I have a native C++ application which uses a managed C++ assembly and loads it with LoadLibrary() without problems. I had to do two things, however, before LoadLibrary() worked:
- Make sure that the current directory is the one where the managed assembly resides (use chdir() to change directory)
- In the managed assembly, the first function invoked by native code only defines the handler for
AppDomain::CurrentDomain->AssemblyResolve event which explicitly loads assemblies from the folder of the managed application. It then invokes another managed function to do the rest of the initialization.
The reason for the last point is that CLR attempts to load an assembly dependency only if a function uses it. So I had to ensure that types in non-system assemblies are not referenced before the AssemblyResolve handler has been defined.
ref class AssemblyResolver
{
public:
/// The path where the assemblies are searched
property String^ Path
{
String^ get()
{ return path_; }
}
explicit AssemblyResolver(String^ path)
: path_(path)
{ /* Void */ }
Assembly^ ResolveHandler(Object^ sender, ResolveEventArgs^ args)
{
// The name passed here contains other information as well
String^ dll_name = args->Name->Substring(0, args->Name->IndexOf(','));
String^ path = System::IO::Path::Combine(path_, dll_name+".dll");
if ( File::Exists(path) )
return Assembly::LoadFile(path);
return nullptr;
}
private:
String^ path_;
};
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) void Initialize()
{
String^ path = "The path where the managed code resides";
AssemblyResolver^ resolver = gcnew AssemblyResolver(path);
AppDomain::CurrentDomain->AssemblyResolve += gcnew ResolveEventHandler(
resolver,
&AssemblyResolver::ResolveHandler
);
FunctionWhichUsesOtherManagedTypes();
}