Using a 32bit or 64bit dll in C# DllImport

I've found the simplest way to do this is to import the two methods with different names, and calling the right one. The DLL won't be loaded until the call is made so it's fine:

[DllImport("MyDll32.dll", EntryPoint = "Func1", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
private static extern int Func1_32(int var1, int var2);

[DllImport("MyDll64.dll", EntryPoint = "Func1", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
private static extern int Func1_64(int var1, int var2);

public static int Func1(int var1, int var2) {
    return IntPtr.Size == 8 /* 64bit */ ? Func1_64(var1, var2) : Func1_32(var1, var2);
}

Of course, if you have many imports, this can be become quite cumbersome to maintain manually.

Here is another alternative that requires that the two DLLs have the same name and are placed in different folders. For instance:

• win32/MyDll.dll
• win64/MyDll.dll

The trick is to manually load the DLL with LoadLibrary before the CLR does it. It will then see that a MyDll.dll is already loaded and use it.

This can be done easily in the static constructor of the parent class.

static class MyDll
{
    static MyDll()
    {            
        var myPath = new Uri(typeof(MyDll).Assembly.CodeBase).LocalPath;
        var myFolder = Path.GetDirectoryName(myPath);

        var is64 = IntPtr.Size == 8;
        var subfolder = is64 ? "\\win64\\" : "\\win32\\";

        LoadLibrary(myFolder + subfolder + "MyDll.dll");
    }

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
    private static extern IntPtr LoadLibrary(string dllToLoad);

    [DllImport("MyDll.dll")]
    public static extern int MyFunction(int var1, int var2);
}

EDIT 2017/02/01: Use Assembly.CodeBase so that it works even if Shadow Copying is enabled.

In this case, i should do like this (make 2 folders, x64 and x86 + put the corresponding dll, WITH THE SAME NAME, in both folders):

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Reflection;
using System.IO;

class Program {
    static void Main(string[] args) {
        var path = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location);
        path = Path.Combine(path, IntPtr.Size == 8 ? "x64" : "x86");
        bool ok = SetDllDirectory(path);
        if (!ok) throw new System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception();
    }
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern bool SetDllDirectory(string path);
}