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Load dynamic library and use functions inside the library

In C#, I am using an external dll, using loadLibrary, like this:
public class Utilities
[DllImport("kernel32", CharSet= CharSet.Auto, SetLastError=true)]
private static extern IntPtr LoadLibrary(string librayName);
[DllImport("kernel32", CharSet= CharSet.Auto, SetLastError=true)]
private static extern IntPtr GetProcAddress(intPtr hwnd, string procedureName);
public static LoadAssembliesAndMethods() {
string mainPath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
string path = Path.Combine(mainPath, "MyAssembly.dll");
IntPtr ptr = LoadLibrary(path);
// What to do next in order to get all the list of functions/methods/class in the library and use them?
}
The dll has no signature of Assembly (it's a 3rd party), so I cannot do
Assebly.LoadFile(path);
I need to get all of the functions/methods/class of the dll, and use some of them, using C#.
How can I do that.

If you want to list all methods inside a unmanaged dll this link help you:
C# get the list of unmanaged C dll exports
Update:
IntPtr funcaddr = GetProcAddress(Handle,functionName);
YourFunctionDelegate function =
Marshal.GetDelegateForFunctionPointer(funcaddr,typeof(YourFunctionDelegate ))
as YourFunctionDelegate ;
function.Invoke(pass here your parameters);
you need to create delegates at coding or using DynamicModules for creating delegates at runtime

There is no common way to get the export list of a unmanaged library programatically.
See Is there a way to find all the functions exposed by a dll for more info

Why does LoadLibrary fail while DllImportAttribute works?

I'm creating a .NET application for a client that performs I/O with one of their third-party systems. As they regularly change the password of this system, I should retrieve it dynamically by calling a native DLL that they provide in a dedicated directory (not besides my EXE file).
However, I have trouble loading the DLL dynamically using LoadLibraryEx. The weird thing is that I can call the library using the DllImportAttribute.
This is what I have done so far:
According to this SO answer, I use the following code (in a constructor) to try to load the DLL dynamically:
public PasswordProvider(string dllPath)
{
if (!File.Exists(dllPath))
throw new FileNotFoundException($"The DLL \"{dllPath}\" does not exist.");
_dllHandle = NativeMethods.LoadLibraryEx(dllPath, IntPtr.Zero, LoadLibraryFlags.None);
if (_dllHandle == IntPtr.Zero)
throw CreateWin32Exception($"Could not load DLL from \"{dllPath}\".");
var procedureHandle = NativeMethods.GetProcAddress(_dllHandle, GetPasswordEntryPoint);
if (procedureHandle == IntPtr.Zero)
throw CreateWin32Exception("Could not retrieve GetPassword function from DLL.");
_getPassword = Marshal.GetDelegateForFunctionPointer<GetPasswordDelegate>(procedureHandle);
}
When LoadLibraryEx is called, the resulting handle is null, the error code is 126 which usually means that the DLL or one of its dependencies could not be found.
When I call LoadLibraryEx with DoNotResolveDllReferences, then I get a working handle but afterwards, I cannot call GetProcAddress (error code 127) - I suspect that I have to fully load the DLL for this.
When I open the native DLL in Dependencies (which essentially is Dependency Walker for Win10), I can clearly see that one of the statically linked DLLs is missing
However, if I copy the DLL besides my EXE file and use the DllImportAttribute, I can call into the DLL
[DllImport(DllPath, EntryPoint = GetPasswordEntryPoint, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
private static extern long GetPassword(long systemId, string user, byte[] password);
How is this possible? I thought that the mechanism behind DllImportAttribute uses LoadLibary internally, too. Where does my code differ? Am I missing something obvious?
Just some notes:
I can't just use DllImportAttribute as I cannot specify searching in a dedicated directory this way (the DLL must lie beside my EXE file or in a common Windows location for this to work).
I also tried LoadLibrary instead of LoadLibraryEx but with the same results.
EDIT after Simons comment:
NativeMethods is defined as followed:
private static class NativeMethods
{
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr LoadLibrary(string dllName);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr LoadLibraryEx(string dllFileName, IntPtr reservedNull, LoadLibraryFlags flags);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr GetProcAddress(IntPtr moduleHandle, string procedureName);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
public static extern bool FreeLibrary(IntPtr moduleHandle);
}
[Flags]
private enum LoadLibraryFlags : uint
{
None = 0,
DoNotResolveDllReferences = 0x00000001,
LoadIgnoreCodeAuthorizationLevel = 0x00000010,
LoadLibraryAsDatafile = 0x00000002,
LoadLibraryAsDatafileExclusive = 0x00000040,
LoadLibraryAsImageResource = 0x00000020,
LoadLibrarySearchApplicationDir = 0x00000200,
LoadLibrarySearchDefaultDirs = 0x00001000,
LoadLibrarySearchDllLoadDir = 0x00000100,
LoadLibrarySearchSystem32 = 0x00000800,
LoadLibrarySearchUserDirs = 0x00000400,
LoadWithAlteredSearchPath = 0x00000008
}
EDIT after Hans Passant's comment:
The overall goal is the ability to replace / update the native DLL while my application (a Windows Service) is running. I detect a file change and then reload the DLL. I am not quite sure if this is possible with DllImportAttribute without restarting the service.
And I should be more specific on the actual problem: I couldn't load the native DLL using LoadLibraryEx, no matter if it was placed next to my EXE, or in another random folder, or in SysWow64. Why does it work with DllImportAttribute? I'm pretty sure that the missing FastMM subdependency DLL is not present on my system (neither next to the actual DLL, nor in any Windows directory).

It's because the DLL search order path. In windows when application try to load a DLL the underlying system automatically search some path for the DLL ,So let's pretend Windows's DLL search path looks something like this:
A) . <-- current working directory of the executable, highest priority, first check
B) \Windows
C) \Windows\system32
D) \Windows\syswow64 <-- lowest priority, last check
You can read more about the underlying mechanism in this Microsoft documentation.
Search for DLL which your main DLL has dependency to it and find where it store on system, add the directory of it to DLL search path of Windows using AddDllDirectory or SetDllDirectory.
If the dll already loaded into memory by any of running process Windows automatically use it instead of searching, so you can load FastMM DLL into memory using LoadLibrary manually and then try to load the main DLL and it should solve the problem too.

#HansPassant and #David Heffernan are right: I actually tried to load two different versions of the DLL (one of them had the FastMM subdependency, one did not). Thanks for your help and sorry for the inconvenience.

How to P/Invoke into kernel32.dll on WinRT 8.1

I'm trying to use a native API method (GetNativeSystemInfo) that is marked as supported for both phone and desktop Store apps on Windows 8.1. In the documentation, it is listed as living in kernel32.dll. Great! So my first attempt at P/Invoke looked like this:
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling = false, PreserveSig = true)]
private static extern void GetNativeSystemInfo(ref SYSTEM_INFO lpSysInfo);
Unfortunately this fails to run on actual devices - kernel32 is not found! As it happens, there is kernelBase.dll, and thus my second attempt:
[DllImport("kernelBase.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling = false, PreserveSig = true)]
private static extern void GetNativeSystemInfo(ref SYSTEM_INFO lpSysInfo);
While this runs fine on my phone, it causes the app to fail certification; the method name and "kernelBase.dll" don't seem to be whitelisted.
Is this an oversight of WACK, or a bug that renders this API unusable in Store apps? My goal is to get information about the running processor (architecture, type, etc), and I'd prefer not to drop in to C++ for something this simple. If this API is not usable in practice, is there another way to get this info?

You'll need different pinvoke signatures for the Windows Phone and the Windows Store versions. For the phone reference GetNativeSystemInfo from api-ms-win-core-sysinfo-l1-2-0.dll
#if WINDOWS_PHONE_APP
[DllImport("api-ms-win-core-sysinfo-l1-2-0.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling = false, PreserveSig = true)]
private static extern void GetNativeSystemInfo(ref SYSTEM_INFO lpSysInfo);
#else
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, ExactSpelling = false, PreserveSig = true)]
private static extern void GetNativeSystemInfo(ref SYSTEM_INFO lpSysInfo);
#endif
See Supported Win32 APIs for Windows Phone 8 for a list (targetted for SL, but also valid for your Runtime app). The right reference will be automatically referenced if you call the function natively, but the tooling isn't there to do so for pinvoke. In general wrapping the function in a native Windows Runtime Component is easier than p-invoke, unless you only have a few, simple p-invokes.

How to fix Ntdll.dll APPCRASH with Hardware ID Extractor?

I am using the Hardware ID Extractor library (written in Delphi) from http://www.soft.tahionic.com/download-hdd_id/index.html with the purpose of generating unique system fingerprints.
The library is really good and unlike anything else I have seen on the market, but the main issue with it is that it's unstable when running with .NET applications, meaning that it sometimes works, other times it works for a few function calls then the main application crashes, or most of the time the application instantly crashes when a dll function is being called.
As the developer of the library pointed out (in the last support e-mail that I have received), the fault is with ntdll.dll, as I have seen that for myself:
Following is a link to a demo project I have created with the purpose of testing the dll functions (so to make sure that nothing else interferes, the demo app does that and only that- it calls the dll functions).
http://www.mediafire.com/download/1jws7zh9218v88a/HardwareIdExtractDllTest.zip
The archive contains the Visual Studio 2013 project with source code and a compiled demo application which looks like this:
The list of functions contained by the dll can be found here:
http://www.soft.tahionic.com/download-hdd_id/hardware%20id%20programming%20source%20code/exported%20functions%20for%20non-Delphi.html
If anyone has the knowledge and is willing to test the demo project/application to make tests or personal opinions in regard to the issue, and then share a possible solution with me, I would be grateful.
Please let me know if there's anything I can do to further assist in solving this issue if you think there's anything that can be done about it.
EDIT: This is how I am declaring the dll functions
[DllImport("HardwareIDExtractorC.dll")]
private static extern bool EnterKey(int key);
[DllImport("HardwareIDExtractorC.dll")]
private static extern bool IsCPUIDAvailable();
[DllImport("HardwareIDExtractorC.dll")]
private static extern int GetCPUCount();
[DllImport("HardwareIDExtractorC.dll")]
private static extern byte CoreNumber2CoreMask(byte cpuCore);
[DllImport("HardwareIDExtractorC.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall, CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, EntryPoint = "GetCPUID")]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)]
private static extern string GetCPUID(byte cpuCore);
[DllImport("HardwareIDExtractorC.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall, CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, EntryPoint = "GetCpuIdNow")]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)]
private static extern string GetCpuIdNow();
[DllImport("HardwareIDExtractorC.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall, CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, EntryPoint = "GetIDESerialNumber")]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)]
private static extern string GetIDESerialNumber(byte driveNumber);

The functions that fail are the ones that return string. Such a p/invoke marshals the return value as a pointer to null terminated character array, and then calls CoTaskMemFree on the raw pointer returned by the unmanaged code.
With probability close to 1 that string was not allocated on the COM heap and so the error is likely in the C# p/invoke declarations. That an access violation then arises in ntdll is quite plausible.
So, to make progress you need to fix the p/invoke calls. I cannot tell you how to do so because you have not shown the unmanaged function declarations. Or, more importantly, how the memory is allocated.
There are some clues at the documentation
procedure ReleaseMemory (P: PAnsiChar); stdcall;
I think this tells us that the strings returned by the DLL must be deallocated by the DLL, by calling this function. Presumably because they were allocated by the DLL's heap allocator.
So, use IntPtr for the return type of the functions that return text. Call Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi to convert to a C# string. And then pass the pointer to ReleaseMemory.
For example:
[DllImport(DllPath, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
private static extern IntPtr GetCPUID(ushort CoreMask);
[DllImport(DllPath, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
private static extern void ReleaseMemory(IntPtr P);
....
IntPtr ptr = GetCPUID(CoreMask);
string cpuid = Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi(ptr);
ReleaseMemory(ptr);

Writing a lite-weight libVLC wrapper. Need help (Newish to P/Invoke)

I'm writing a super-simple ultra-lite weight .Net wrapper for the LibVLC media library since the only things I need access to are the ability to play, pause and stop media files. I've posted a couple of questions on this and gotten some answers but unfortunately I'm just left with more questions.
We'll start from the top and work down.
The documentation first states I have to initialize VLC with a call to the function with this specification:
libvlc_instance_t* libvlc_new (int argc, const char *const *argv)
for which I have the defined the following method:
[DllImport("libvlc", EntryPoint = "libvlc_new",
CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
public static extern IntPtr NewCore(int argc, IntPtr argv);
And I'm calling the function like this:
private IntPtr Instance;
this.Instance = DGLibVLC.NewCore(0, IntPtr.Zero);
I have tried it several different ways. Initially I did not know about the CallingConvention which was leading to an unbalanced stack which brought me here in the first place. That issue was resolved and the method has gone through several iterations, none of which have proved successful, by which I mean IntPtr is always 0 after the method call. I've tried it like it is above, with the second argument being String[] argc, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray, ArraySubType = UnmanagedType.LPStr)] string[],
I've tried having it return to a Long (which actually resulted in the Long having a value in it), but nothing so far has worked correctly.
Does anyone know the correct way to call this function from the LibVLC DLL Library?
EDIT: On a suggestion I tried calling the error message function of the library:
Specification:
const char* libvlc_errmsg (void)
Implementation:
[DllImport("libvlc", EntryPoint = "libvlc_errmsg",
CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdcel)]
public static extern string GetLastError();
Call:
Console.WriteLine(DGLibVLC.GetLastError());
Result:
Null
The documentation states it will return Null if there is no error. This must indicate that the initial function call NewCore was working correctly but something is still going wrong somehow.
To be cover all bases I checked that the DLLs match the documentation, they do. 2.0.6.0. The documentation I am referencing is here.
EDIT: I can confirm there is no error. When using an initialized to zero long variable to store the result of NewCore I can see it returning something. What I am doing wrong here is where I am trying to store the pointer being returned by the unmanaged function that returns the pointer to the object. How do I store the pointer to the opaque structure reference being passed back?

It doesn't have anything to do with the way you call the function. You cannot get anywhere when you get IntPtr.Zero back from libvlc_new(). It means "there was an error". You'll need to focus on error reporting first, call libvlc_errmsg() to try to get a description for the problem.

So after much looking around and asking questions I've come full circle.
I looked deeply into LibVLC.Net and found how they were importing the DLL functions and adapted what they did to my own wrapper and it worked.
To summarize:
There are some Win32 API functions declared in the code at the start:
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = true)]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
private static extern bool SetDllDirectory(string lpPathName);
[DllImport("kernel32", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern IntPtr LoadLibrary(string lpFileName);
[DllImport("kernel32", CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = true)]
private static extern IntPtr GetProcAddress(IntPtr hModule, string procName);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern bool FreeLibrary(IntPtr hModule);
that handle providing a handle to a dll and setting a directory search path.
I don't know exactly what it all means but when you initialize the LibVLC.Net library (the primary object) it loads pretty much EVERY function like so:
m_libvlc_media_player_new = (libvlc_media_player_new_signature)LoadDelegate<libvlc_media_player_new_signature>("libvlc_media_player_new");
That delegate is defined here like so:
[UnmanagedFunctionPointer(CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
private delegate IntPtr libvlc_media_player_new_signature(IntPtr p_instance);
//==========================================================================
private readonly libvlc_media_player_new_signature m_libvlc_media_player_new;
//==========================================================================
public IntPtr libvlc_media_player_new(IntPtr p_instance)
{
VerifyAccess();
return m_libvlc_media_player_new(p_instance);
}
And it has a public function that calls the delegate once defined.
I simply stripped down the function that defines the library instance and imported only the functionality I needed.
Thanks very much to everyone who was so patient in helping me along. I likely wouldn't have been able to come to a solution without your help.
EDIT: Okay so it wasn't that. It was the location of the LibVLC Plugin Directory. So it was something stupid -.-;