CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#dllunmanaged
Gary Jones
Gary Jones

Reputation: 3197

Where to place external DLL in C#?

If I reference an external unmanaged DLL in C# by the following:

[DLLImport("MyDLL.dll",  ...

Where should the DLL be placed when I want to run the code from my IDE? Should it be in the bin\Debug folder?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 635

Answers (3)

ta.speot.is
ta.speot.is

Reputation: 27214

Anywhere locatable by the LoadLibrary function. See Dynamic-Link Library Search Order for more information:

If SafeDllSearchMode is enabled, the search order is as follows:

  • The directory from which the application loaded.
  • The system directory. Use the GetSystemDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
  • The 16-bit system directory. There is no function that obtains the path of this directory, but it is searched.
  • The Windows directory. Use the GetWindowsDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
  • The current directory.
  • The directories that are listed in the PATH environment variable. Note that this does not include the per-application path specified by the App Paths registry key. The App Paths key is not used when computing the DLL search path.

bin\Debug satisfies the first point, assuming that you're only ever running the application in its Debug configuration.

Upvotes: 1

Ben Voigt
Ben Voigt

Reputation: 283684

Yes, alongside the .exe file produced by the compiler (which ends up in bin\Debug\ as you said) should be perfect.

Upvotes: 0

qwerty
qwerty

Reputation: 2095

Which compiling configuration you are using?

If you want to run the application from Visual Studio Debug/Run it would be in your project folder

If you want to run by double click, it should be near your exe which is in

bin\Debug

or

bin\Release

folder.

Upvotes: 1

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