Finding which of a set of assemblies depends on assembly X

Question

How can I quickly find, given a folder with .Net assemblies, which of these depends on some given assembly?

(Opening them up one by one with Reflector is not what I had in mind)

Answer 1

Have you tried using Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoad and then Assembly.GetReferencedAssemblies? Look through the referenced assemblies to see if the list includes the one you're after.

Answer 2

You can do it in code using GetReferencedAssemblies() method of assembly:

public void GetDependentAssemblies(Assembly assembly)
{
    var assembliesPaths = new[] { 
                                  @"c:\dlls\assembly1.dll",
                                  @"c:\dlls\assembly2.dll"
                                };

    IEnumerable<Assembly> dependantAssemblies = assembliesPaths
        .Select(path => Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom(path))
        .Where(folderAssembly =>
                   {
                       var fullNames =  folderAssembly.GetReferencedAssemblies()
                                                  .Select(name => name.FullName);
                       return fullNames.Contains(assembly.GetName().FullName);
                   });
}

Answer 3

I modified @Elisha's answer just a bit:

    public static IEnumerable<Assembly> GetDependentAssemblies(string assemblyName, string assembliesPath)
    {

        var assembliesPaths = Directory.GetFiles(assembliesPath, "*.dll");

        return assembliesPaths
            .Select(Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom)
            .Where(folderAssembly =>
            {
                var fullNames = folderAssembly.GetReferencedAssemblies()
                                           .Select(name => name.FullName);
                return fullNames.Where(x => 
                       x.ToLower().Contains(assemblyName.ToLower())).Count() > 0;
            });
    }