Create custom AppDomain and add assemblies to it

Question

How can I create an appdomain, add assemblies to it, then destroy that app domain? This is what I have tried:

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {               


        

Answer 1

Two quick points:

1. AppDomain.Load loads an assembly in the current AppDomain and not on myDomain (weird, I know).
2. AppDomain.Load loads an assembly in the Load context, which resolves assemblies from the apps base-dir, the private-bin-paths and the GAC. Most probably, the assembly you try to load is not located in any of these locations which explains the exception message.

For more info have a look at this answer.

One way to load assemblies to an AppDomain is by creating a MarshalByRef-derived loader. You need something like this to avoid leaking types (and assemblies) to your main AppDomain. Here's a simple one:

public class SimpleAssemblyLoader : MarshalByRefObject
{
    public void Load(string path)
    {
        ValidatePath(path);

        Assembly.Load(path);
    }

    public void LoadFrom(string path)
    {
        ValidatePath(path);

        Assembly.LoadFrom(path);
    }

    private void ValidatePath(string path)
    {
        if (path == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("path");
        if (!System.IO.File.Exists(path))
            throw new ArgumentException(String.Format("path \"{0}\" does not exist", path));
    }
}

And use it like that:

//Create the loader (a proxy).
var assemblyLoader =  (SimpleAssemblyLoader)myDomain.CreateInstanceAndUnwrap(typeof(SimpleAssemblyLoader).Assembly.FullName, typeof(SimpleAssemblyLoader).FullName);
//Load an assembly in the LoadFrom context. Note that the Load context will
//not work unless you correctly set the AppDomain base-dir and private-bin-paths.
assemblyLoader.LoadFrom(pathToExe);

//Do whatever you want to do.

//Finally unload the AppDomain.
AppDomain.Unload(myDomain);