I have a project that handles considerably large arrays. Some of the code is written in C, and some of it is written in C#. To pass data from C to C#, I am using the MarshalAs attribute. Since the arrays are large, I would rather avoid copying. So my question is: Will MarshalAs cause the data to be copied from C to C#, or will the C# byte[] refer to the exact same location that was allocated by C?
A C function is responsible for passing the data to C#, which means I use a callback. The callback looks like this:
void (*to_call)(const uint8_t* buffer, int buffer_length);
DLLEXPORT
init(void(*callback)(const uint8_t* buffer, int buffer_length))
{
to_call = callback;
}
Eventually, the to_call callback will be called from C. The C# code looks like this:
public delegate void Callback([In][MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray, SizeParamIndex = 1)]byte[] buffer, int bufferLength);
[DllImport(DLLPath)]
public static extern void init(Callback callback);
I would also like to know how the answer applies to .Net Framework and .Net Core.
It should get pinned, according to Does .NET interop copy array data back and forth, or does it pin the array?.
Though this doesn't seem really well documented or defined, so I'd pin it explicitly if I were you, to be safe.
Related
I have an array of arrays of this struct (shown here in C#, but existing in C++ as well):
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct MyStruct
{
IntPtr name; //pointer to string, char* on C++ side
long pValues;
long jValues;
long eValues;
long kValues;
int cost;
};
and an algorithm in a C++ DLL that does work on it, being called from managed C# code. It's CPU-heavy, which is what necessitates this as it runs much faster in C++ than C#. The managed (C#) side never has to know the contents of the struct data, as the algorithm only returns a single array of ints.
So, how would I go about storing this data in the most efficient way (ie with the least overhead), for the lifetime of the application? I think I have it narrowed down to two options:
Initialize structs and set values in C#, pin memory with GCHandle and pass reference to C++ whenever I want to do work (see this post on Unity forums)
Initialize structs and set values in C++, have structs persist in memory on unmanaged side
So my questions are very specific:
With 1, I'm confused as to how marshalling works. It looks like in MSDN: Copying and Pinning that you are able to pass arrays of structures by pinning and passing a reference to the pinned data, without having to copy or convert any of it (and as long as the struct looks the same on both sides). Am I reading that correctly, is that how it actually works? Referring to the Unity3d forum post, I see Marshal.PtrToStructure being called; I thought that performs copying operations? As the data would be stored on the managed side in this instance, having to copy and/or convert the data every time the C++ function is called would cause a lot of overhead, unless I'm thinking that those type of operations are a lot more expensive than they actually are.
With 2, I'm wondering if it's possible to have persistence between C++ calls. To the best of my knowledge, if you're P/Invoking from a DLL, you can't have persistent data on the unmanaged side, so I can't just define and store my struct arrays there, making the only data transferred between managed and unmanaged the int array resulting from the unmanaged algorithm. Is this correct?
Thank you very much for taking the time to read and help!
If the C# code does not need to know the internals of the array and the structure, don't expose it to the C# code. Do all the work on this type in the unmanaged code and avoid marshalling overhead.
Essentially, you want to follow this basic pattern. I'm sure the details will differ, but this should give you the basic concept.
C++
MyStruct* newArray(const int len)
{
return new MyStruct[len];
}
void workOnArray(MyStruct* array, const int len)
{
// do stuff with the array
}
void deleteArray(const MyStruct* array)
{
delete[] array;
}
C#
[DllImport(dllname)]
static extern IntPtr newArray(int len);
[DllImport(dllname)]
static extern void workOnArray(IntPtr array int len);
[DllImport(dllname)]
static extern void deleteArray(IntPtr array);
I've read the various MSDN pages on C++ Interop with P/Invoke here and here but I am still confused.
I have some large arrays of doubles that I need to get into native code, and some resulting arrays that need to get back. I do not know the sizes of the output arrays in advance. For simplicity, I will use only a single array in the example. The platform is x64; I read that marshalling internals are quite different between 32- and 64-bit environments so this might be important.
C#
[DllImport("NativeLib.dll")]
public static extern void ComputeSomething(double[] inputs, int inlen,
[Out] out IntPtr outputs, [Out] out int outlen);
[DllImport("NativeLib.dll")]
public static extern void FreeArray(IntPtr outputs);
public void Compute(double[] inputs, out double[] outputs)
{
IntPtr output_ptr;
int outlen;
ComputeSomething(inputs, inputs.Length, out output_ptr, out outlen);
outputs = new double[outlen];
Marshal.Copy(output_ptr, outputs, 0, outlen);
FreeArray(output_ptr);
}
C++
extern "C"
{
void ComputeSomething(double* inputs, int input_length,
double** outputs, int* output_length)
{
//...
*output_length = ...;
*outputs = new double[output_length];
//...
}
void FreeArray(double* outputs)
{
delete[] outputs;
}
}
It works, that is, I can read out the doubles I wrote into the array on the C++ side. However, I wonder:
Is this really the right way to use P/Invoke?
Aren't my signatures needlessly complicated?
Can P/Invoke be used more efficiently to solve this problem?
I believe I read that marshalling for single dimensional arrays of built-in types can be avoided. Is there a way around Marshal.Copy?
Note that we have a working C++/Cli version, but there are some problems related to local statics in third-party library code that lead to crashes. Microsoft marked this issue as WONTFIX, which is why I am looking for alternatives.
It is okayish. The complete lack of a way to return an error code is pretty bad, that's going to hurt when the arrays are large and the program runs out of memory. The hard crash you get is pretty undiagnosable.
The need to copy the arrays and to explicitly release them doesn't win any prizes of course. You solve that by letting the caller pass a pointer to its own array and you just write the elements. You however need a protocol to let the caller figure out how large the array needs to be, that is going to require calling the method twice. The first call returns the required size, the second call gets the job done.
A boilerplate example would be:
[DllImport("foo.dll")]
private static int ReturnData(double[] data, ref int dataLength);
And a sample usage:
int len = 0;
double[] data = null;
int err = ReturnData(data, ref len);
if (err == ERROR_MORE_DATA) { // NOTE: expected
data = new double[len];
err = ReturnData(data, len);
}
No need to copy, no need to release memory, good thing. The native code can corrupt the GC heap if it doesn't pay attention to the passed len, not such a good thing. But of course easy to avoid.
If it were practical to separate the code that determines the output length from the code that populates the output then you could:
Export a function that returned the output length.
Call that from the C# code and then allocate the output buffer.
Call the unmanaged code again, this time asking it to populate the output buffer.
But I'm assuming that you have rejected this option because it is impractical. In which case your code is a perfectly reasonable way to solve your problem. In fact I would say that you've done a very good job.
The code will work just the same in x86 once you fix the calling convention mismatch. On the C++ side the calling convention is cdecl, but on the C# side it is stdcall. That doesn't matter on x64 since there is only one calling convention. But it would be a problem under x86.
Some comments:
You don't need to use [Out] as well as out. The latter implies the former.
You can avoid exporting the deallocator by allocating off a shared heap. For instance CoTaskMemAlloc on the C++ side, and then deallocate with Mashal.FreeCoTaskMem on the C# side.
If you knew the array size beforehand, you could write a C++/CLI DLL that takes the managed array as parameter, pins it, and calls the native C++ DLL on the pinned pointer it obtains.
But if it's output-only, I don't see any version without a copy. You can use a SAFEARRAY so P/Invoke does the copying instead of you, but that's all.
I am using PInvoke to call a C++ function from my C# program. The code looks like this:
IntPtr data = Poll(this.vhtHand);
double[] arr = new double[NR_FINGERS /* = 5 */ * NR_JOINTS /* = 3*/];
Marshal.Copy(data, arr, 0, arr.Length);
With Poll()'s signature looking like this:
[DllImport("VirtualHandBridge.dll")]
static public extern IntPtr Poll(IntPtr hand);
The C-function Poll's signature:
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) double* Poll(CyberHand::Hand* hand)
Unless I'm having a huge brain failure (admittedly, fairly common for me), this looks to me like it should be working.
However, the double values I am getting are completely incorrect, and I think this is because of incorrect memory usage. I have looked it up, and I think doubles in C# and C++ are identical in size, but maybe there is some other issue playing here. One thing that rubs me the wrong way is that Marshal.Copy is never told what type of data it should expect, but I read that it is supposed to be used this way.
Any clues, anyone? If needed, I can post the correct results and the returned results.
You are missing the CallingConvention property, it is Cdecl.
You really want to favor a better function signature, the one you have is extremely brittle due to the memory management problem, the required manual marshaling, the uncertainty of getting the right size array and the requirement to copy the data. Always favor the caller passing a buffer that your native code fills in:
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport)
int __stdcall Poll(CyberHand::Hand* hand, double* buffer, size_t bufferSize)
[DllImport("foo.dll")]
private static extern int Poll(IntPtr hand, double[] buffer, int bufferSize)
Use the int return value to report a status code. Like a negative value to report an error code, a positive value to return the number of elements actually copied into the buffer.
You shouldn't even need to marshal the data like that, as long as you declare the P/Invoke correctly.
If your CyberHand::Hand* is in reality a pointer to a double, then you should declare your P/Invoke as
[DllImport("VirtualHandBridge.dll")]
static public extern IntPtr Poll(double[] data);
And then just call it with your array of doubles.
If it isn't really an array of doubles, then you certainly can't do what you're doing.
Also, how does your 'C' function know how big the array will be? Is it a fixed size?
The IntPtr return value will be a problem. What is the double* pointing to? An array or a single item?
You could find that it's easier (if you can) to write a simpler more friendly 'C' wrapper for the function you're calling, and call the wrapper function itself. You can of course only do that if you can change the source code of the 'C' DLL. But without knowing exactly what your function does, I can't give you specific advice.
[EDIT]
Ok, your code should theoretically work if the memory being passed back isn't being messed around with (e.g. freed up). If it's not working, then I suspect something like that is happening. You'd definitely be better writing a wrapper 'C' function that fills in an array allocated by the C# and passed to the function, rather than passing back a pointer to some internal memory.
BTW: I don't like code which passes around pointers to blocks of memory without also passing the size of that block. Seems a bit prone to nasty things.
I have a C++ library, header of which looks like:
void NotMyFun(double * a, int * b);
The function reads from a, and writes to b. To call the library I have created a C++/CLI wrapper, where below function is defined:
static void MyWrapperFun(double * a, int * b)
{
NotMyFun(a,b);
}
and works OK. From C# code, say, I have two managed arrays, i.e. double[] ma and double[] mb, where ma already holds some meaningful data, and mb is -meaningfully- filled when wrapper is called. Is below an OK way to call the wrapper function?
unsafe
{
fixed (double* pma = ma)
{
fixed (int* pmb = mb)
{
MyWrapperNS.MyWrapperClass.MyWrapperFun(pma,pmb);
}
}
}
Are the unsafe pointers a fast way? Is any data copying involved here while passing and retrieving to/from C++/CLI wrapper? Or pointers are already pointing to a continuous memory space in C# arrays?
Besides, do I need any manual memory cleaning here? If the pointers are tied to the memory of managed C# arrays, I guess they are properly garbage collected after, but just want to be sure.
Personally I think you are over-complicating things. I'd avoid the unsafe code and skip the C++/CLI layer. I'd use a simple p/invoke declared like this:
[DllImport(#"mylib.dll")]
static extern void NotMyFun(double[] a, int[] b);
Because double and int are blittable types, no copying is necessary. The marshaller just pins the arrays for the duration of the call.
I am trying to import a function from a c dll into C#. The c function looks like this
unsigned short write_buffer( unsigned short device_number, unsigned short word_count, unsigned long buffer_link, unsigned short* buffer)
my attempt at a C# import looks like this
[DllImport("sslib32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, SetLastError = true)]
private static extern ushort write_buffer(ushort deviceNumber, ushort wordCount, UInt32 bufferLink, IntPtr buffer)
In C# i have a Dictionary of messages that i would like to pass to this function. The Dictionary looks like this:
Dictionary<string, List<ushort>> msgs
I am a bit confused how to make a make a proper call to pass msgs as the buffer. deviceNumber is 2, wordCount is 32, and buffLink is 0. So i know the call should look something like this
write_buffer(2,32,0, msgs[key]);
Obviously i am getting an invalid argument for the IntPtr. What is the proper way to make this call?
It is quite unclear what buffer should contain and in which direction its data flows. Your dictionary suggests it should be an array. Just declare it that way:
private static extern ushort write_buffer(.., ushort[] buffer);
And use msgs[key].ToArray() in the call.
Using constants in the write_buffer() call does not make that a likely scenario though, there ought to be msgs[key].Count in there somewhere.
You can generate P/Invoke signatures using the P/Invoke Interop Assistant tool that is referenced here.
In the January 2008 issue of the MSDN
Magazine, Yi Zhang and Xiaoying Guo
have published a CLR Inside Out column
on marshaling between managed and
unmanaged code. In that column, they
introduce the P/Invoke Interop
Assistant, an automatic GUI and
command-line utility for converting
between managed and unmanaged
signatures (in both directions). This
conversion, of course, is not limited
just to Windows signatures; give the
tool a snippet of your own C header
files and it will dutifully convert
them to pretty-printed C#
[DllImport]'s.
If you don't mind marking the code unsafe, you can simply do:
fixed(ushort* pData = msgs[key])
{
write_buffer(2,32,0, pData);
}
And declare your DllImport to take ushort* as the last argument.
The alternative is to use Marshal.StructureToPtr to get the array marshalled into fixed memory. This requires you to allocate memory first using AllocHGlobal, and freeing using FreeHGlobal.