How can I determine if a .NET assembly was built for x86 or x64?

Question

I've got an arbitrary list of .NET assemblies.

I need to programmatically check if each DLL was built for x86 (as opposed to x64 or Any CPU). Is this possible?

Answer 1

Look at System.Reflection.AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(string assemblyFile)

You can examine assembly metadata from the returned AssemblyName instance:

Using PowerShell:

[36] C:\> [reflection.assemblyname]::GetAssemblyName("${pwd}\Microsoft.GLEE.dll") | fl

Name                  : Microsoft.GLEE
Version               : 1.0.0.0
CultureInfo           :
CodeBase              : file:///C:/projects/powershell/BuildAnalyzer/...
EscapedCodeBase       : file:///C:/projects/powershell/BuildAnalyzer/...
ProcessorArchitecture : MSIL
Flags                 : PublicKey
HashAlgorithm         : SHA1
VersionCompatibility  : SameMachine
KeyPair               :
FullName              : Microsoft.GLEE, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neut... 

Here, ProcessorArchitecture identifies target platform.

• Amd64: A 64-bit processor based on the x64 architecture.
• Arm: An ARM processor.
• IA64: A 64-bit Intel Itanium processor only.
• MSIL: Neutral with respect to processor and bits-per-word.
• X86: A 32-bit Intel processor, either native or in the Windows on Windows environment on a 64-bit platform (WOW64).
• None: An unknown or unspecified combination of processor and bits-per-word.

I'm using PowerShell in this example to call the method.