How to Validate if a File is Executable in C#

Executable file uploads can pose a serious threat to your system — so it’s important to validate all executable contents before sending them along to sensitive backend services. Thankfully, the free-to-use API below will automatically validate Executables in a single request, identifying if they’re valid, password protected, or contain any errors and warnings you should be aware of.

You can use this API right away for free by copying & pasting from the ready-to-run C# code examples provided below.

We can start by installing the client SDK — to do so, let’s run the following command:

Install-Package Cloudmersive.APIClient.NET.DocumentAndDataConvert -Version 3.4.2

After that, let’s copy & paste the below code to structure our API call:

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using Cloudmersive.APIClient.NET.DocumentAndDataConvert.Api;
using Cloudmersive.APIClient.NET.DocumentAndDataConvert.Client;
using Cloudmersive.APIClient.NET.DocumentAndDataConvert.Model;

namespace Example
{
    public class ValidateDocumentExecutableValidationExample
    {
        public void main()
        {
            // Configure API key authorization: Apikey
            Configuration.Default.AddApiKey("Apikey", "YOUR_API_KEY");

            var apiInstance = new ValidateDocumentApi();
            var inputFile = new System.IO.FileStream("C:\\temp\\inputfile", System.IO.FileMode.Open); // System.IO.Stream | Input file to perform the operation on.

            try
            {
                // Validate if a file is executable
                DocumentValidationResult result = apiInstance.ValidateDocumentExecutableValidation(inputFile);
                Debug.WriteLine(result);
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Debug.Print("Exception when calling ValidateDocumentApi.ValidateDocumentExecutableValidation: " + e.Message );
            }
        }
    }
}

Now we can authenticate our request with a free-tier API key (register a free account on the Cloudmersive website to get one).

That’s all there is to it!