How to check programmatically whether a managed assembly is x86, x64 or AnyCPU?

Question

I need to determine programmatically whether an assembly is x86, x64 or AnyCPU? There is an almost identical question , but the solution that it provides

Assembly assembly = Assembly.LoadFrom(fileName);
PortableExecutableKinds peKind;
ImageFileMachine imageFileMachine;
assembly.ManifestModule.GetPEKind(out peKind, out imageFileMachine);

fails when trying to load a 64-bit assembly from a 32-bit process (and vice versa).

Is there a foolproof way of programmatically finding out the compilation type of an assembly?

EDIT: Based on @BenVoigt suggestion, I created a small command line utility that checks whether the DLL is managed or not and whether its x86/x64/AnyCPU. I hope someone finds it useful.

Answer 1

This question's been covered already:

• How to Tell if a .NET Assembly Was Compiled as x86, x64 or Any CPU
• How to determine if a .NET assembly was built for x86 or x64?
• How can I get the processor architecture of an assembly dll?

But the answers are incomplete, suggesting use of Assembly.LoadFrom . That's a terrible idea, since it will run code from the assembly, in addition to failing if the bitness doesn't match your process.

Instead, you should use Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom . This lets you read the metadata without actually loading any code, and therefore there's no need for the architecture to be correct.