Making PInvoke Easy

More P/Invoke Help

DevPrime — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:45:52 GMT

One of the first things I really hammered with .NET 1.0 back in late 2000 was P/Invoke. I was used to

re: Making PInvoke Easy

Greg — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:09:47 GMT

Suggest listing a .NET framework to Win32 call equivalent and then greatly reducing the number of Win32 calls that do not have a .NET equivalent or a MS generated PInvoke wrapper.

I've been through it in C# with calling the SQL Server backup APIs. The best suggestion I've seen in to write simple C++ wrappers around the Win32 calls that the wrappers just translate to/from the C++ paramter types of those calls. Much easier than using an IntPtr and calculating offsets, etc in C#.

This could be a lot nicer when we get most of Win32 into .NET and then retire the win32 apis by using a .NET framework THUNK layer to emulate win32 for legacy applications that need Win32.

PInvoke Interop Assistant: O εύκολος τρόπος για μιλήσετε με unmanaged κώδικα

Manos Kelaiditis' Weblog — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:12:34 GMT

Στον κόσμο του .NET framework υπάρχουν πολλές φορές περιπτώσεις όπου είναι απαραίτητο ο managed κώδικας

re: Making PInvoke Easy

Michael Giagnocavo — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:51:16 GMT

Well finally, thanks!

@Greg: You sound like PDC '03: "Longhorn is gonna be like, all managed code man, and like, everything new is in managed code and it's first class and everything."

Fast forward to Vista RTM and I'm not sure if there were any managed APIs (although TONS of unmanaged stuff around).

I wouldn't keep my hopes up of the Windows team getting this fixed. Seems like too many hardcore leet people who think C/C++ rocks.

But hey, at least SQL already did (backup in SQL 2005? SMO makes it about 5 lines of code).

re: Making PInvoke Easy

Greg — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 01:57:19 GMT

The .NET framework is largely complete enough to replace win32 above the device driver level. Creating Thunk modules to replace different win32 API sets could be done over the next year or two. We'd be largely win32 free at that point.

We have lots of problems finding decent C++ talent and the schools are not graduating any sizable numbers of new C++ developers. This is forcing us to replace our C++ systems.

re: Making PInvoke Easy

MichaelGG — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:29:46 GMT

Greg, I definately agree with you. It's just not going to happen unless the Windows team replaces a lot of people. They started somewhat down that path with Vista, then scrapped that idea and started over. Take a look at this:

http://www.grimes.demon.co.uk/dotnet/vistaAndDotnet.htm

So, yes, I agree (not on replacing Win32, but migrating towards .NET parity, at least). But no, Windows is not heading in that direction at all, and I doubt the Windows team ever will. Other teams seem much more on the ball here (SQL, everything under ScottGu, etc.)

But, with Vista's poor reception, perhaps they'll have a change of heart :).

PInvoke の使用に役立つツール

The Visual Basic Team — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:31:14 GMT

再び Jared です。私が作業に携わってきたツールが、最近 MSDN でリリースされました。マネージコードでの PInvoke の使用に役立つ PInvoke Interop Assistant

PInvoke Interop Assistant on CodePlex

The Visual Basic Team — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:27:45 GMT

I'm happy to announce that the PInvoke Interop Assistant tool is now available on CodePlex. This includes

re: Making PInvoke Easy

Anton Morozov — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:54:30 GMT

Great tool.

I'd only suggest the (optional?) omitting the System.Runtime.InteropServices namespace from the generated code...

re: Making PInvoke Easy

Jared Parsons — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:40:11 GMT

@Anton

Thanks for the suggestion. I've heard this multiple times and I'm looking for a way to do this. Unfortunately though, I rely on the CodeDom to spit code out and by default it spits out fully qualified names.

re: Making PInvoke Easy

Fippy Darkpaw — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:30:34 GMT

Amazing tool. Really saved me a lot of time at work converting some calls to a C++ DLL that return structs.

re: Making PInvoke Easy

Carlos Guaneme — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:26:03 GMT

Save my life. Definitevely a must have. Thanks for sharing this.