Calling DLL atruntime

[Michael Hesse]

Hi,

I need to call a DLL. During development, I have had no problems using
"Declare" statements, but in production, I don't want to hard-code the path.

I would like to read the path fron an ini file and then load the DLL. Is
there a VB.NET equivalent of LoadLibrary?

Thanks,

[Tom Shelton]

Michael Hesse wrote:

Hi,

I need to call a DLL. During development, I have had no problems using
"Declare" statements, but in production, I don't want to hard-code the path.

I would like to read the path fron an ini file and then load the DLL. Is
there a VB.NET equivalent of LoadLibrary?

Thanks,

You don't need a path in the declare statement... You just need the
dll in the search path - and that will include the application
directory or the system directory.

--
Tom Shelton [MVP]

[R. MacDonald]

Hello, Michael,

Tom's method is definitely the simplest, if you can be confident that
your DLL is always on the path (or if you can manipulate the path to
suit its location).

On rare occasions this might not be possible. Then you might find the
method proposed (apparently independently) by Mike Woodring:

http://staff.develop.com/woodring

and Richard Birkby

http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/dyninvok.asp

to be helpful.

Cheers,
Randy
Tom Shelton wrote:

Michael Hesse wrote:

Hi,

I need to call a DLL. During development, I have had no problems using
"Declare" statements, but in production, I don't want to hard-code the path.

I would like to read the path fron an ini file and then load the DLL. Is
there a VB.NET equivalent of LoadLibrary?

Thanks,

You don't need a path in the declare statement... You just need the
dll in the search path - and that will include the application
directory or the system directory.

--
Tom Shelton [MVP]

[Michael Hesse]

Hi Randy,

It's a bit more complicated than I would hope, but certainly doable. You
would think there would be a simpler way.

But I will give it a shot.

Thanks for the help.

Michael
"R. MacDonald" <sc****@NO-SP-AMcips.ca> wrote in message
news:44***********************@news.wanadoo.nl...

Hello, Michael,

Tom's method is definitely the simplest, if you can be confident that your
DLL is always on the path (or if you can manipulate the path to suit its
location).

On rare occasions this might not be possible. Then you might find the
method proposed (apparently independently) by Mike Woodring:

http://staff.develop.com/woodring

and Richard Birkby

http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/dyninvok.asp

to be helpful.

Cheers,
Randy
Tom Shelton wrote:

Michael Hesse wrote:

Hi,

I need to call a DLL. During development, I have had no problems using
"Declare" statements, but in production, I don't want to hard-code the
path.

I would like to read the path fron an ini file and then load the DLL. Is
there a VB.NET equivalent of LoadLibrary?

Thanks,

You don't need a path in the declare statement... You just need the
dll in the search path - and that will include the application
directory or the system directory.

--
Tom Shelton [MVP]