I have a problem, I tried to look at almost all the poster solutions, unsuccessful to find a suitable one.
The question is easy, Want to have a return string from unmanaged C code in my managed C#.
The c function is:
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) int process_batch (char *&result);
and in C# I imported the DLL:
[DllImport("mydll.dll")]
public static extern IntPtr process_batch(StringBuilder result);
I run, but the return value in my StringBuilder is a 7-8 character string of non-sense! (I think the memory address)
I tried adding ref before the StringBuilder, this time I get the correct return value in StringBuilder but I get AccessViolationException :
Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.
So I need your help to fix this.
Just one more thing, I use malloc in c for allocating the memory to the char* variable.
Thanks,
If you really want to do that, pass the parameter as a ref IntPtr, then call Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi, or similar.
[DllImport("mydll.dll")]
public static extern IntPtr process_batch(ref IntPtr result);
Note that, since you're allocating the string with malloc in C, the .NET program will have to keep track of the returned pointer so that it can pass it back to you to be deallocated. Otherwise you'll have a memory leak.
If you were to pass a ref StringBuilder, you wouldn't be able to deallocate the memory that was allocated by the C program.
Also, as somebody commented in another post, you need to set the calling convention:
[DllImport("mydll.dll", CallingConvention=CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
I've been using the following code successfully:
[DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint = "GetClassName", ExactSpelling = false,
CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
private static extern int _GetClassName(IntPtr hwnd, StringBuilder lpClassName,
int nMaxCount);
public static string GetClassName(IntPtr hWnd)
{
StringBuilder title = new StringBuilder(MAXTITLE);
int titleLength = _GetClassName(hWnd, title, title.Capacity + 1);
title.Length = titleLength;
return title.ToString();
}
I'd advise for a more specific declaration of the imported method via the DllImportAttribute. Try the CharSet = CharSet.Auto bit for instance
I know that this is not exactly related to your original problem as this makes use of the Windows API, but maybe it is of help nonetheless.
Related
I am working on a project where I need to PInvoke the secur32!AddSecurityPackageA function, but I am still learning the ins and outs of how to do this by hand and could use some help.
Here are a the references I am working with:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/api/sspi/nf-sspi-addsecuritypackagea
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/api/sspi/ns-sspi-_security_package_options
And here's a sample of my code where I am trying to define the struct and call the function:
[DllImport("secur32.dll", EntryPoint = "AddSecurityPackageA")]
public static extern void AddSecurityPackageA(
ref string pszPackageName,
ref SECURITY_PACKAGE_OPTIONS[] Options
);
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet =CharSet.Ansi)]
public class SECURITY_PACKAGE_OPTIONS
{
public ulong Size;
public ulong Type;
public ulong Flags;
public ulong SignatureSize;
public IntPtr Signature;
}
string dll = #"c:\temp\test.dll";
SECURITY_PACKAGE_OPTIONS[] pkgOpts = new SECURITY_PACKAGE_OPTIONS();
AddSecurityPackageA(ref dll, ref pkgOpts);
My questions are:
At lines 3 and 4, is this an appropriate use of ref and is this generally correct according to the MSDN docs?
At line 14, the C++ struct on MSDN has this as a void pointer, but while researching I found that the C# equivalent is an IntPtr. Is that correct or do I need to use unsafe?
In general, has anyone found any really good PInvoke tutorials outside of reading other people's code? I'm moving over from Python so it is quite a bit different and much of what I've found is either "draw a circle, draw the rest of the owl" or insanely lengthy MSDN documentation that makes a lot of assumptions.
Thank you!
Some comments:
Use the W function rather than the A function. You don't want to limit yourself to ANSI. This is a Unicode world.
The function has a return value. You must declare the function with a matching return value type. Presumably it is uint or int but you should check in the C++ header file.
ref string is wrong. It should be string.
ref SECURITY_PACKAGE_OPTIONS[] is wrong. It is not an array. It is a pointer to a struct. Since you declared SECURITY_PACKAGE_OPTIONS as a class, a reference type, you can replace ref SECURITY_PACKAGE_OPTIONS[] with SECURITY_PACKAGE_OPTIONS.
C++ unsigned long is 32 bits, so it should be uint in C#.
IntPtr is correct, but that leaves unresolved the question of how to declare the digital signature and obtain a pointer to it. I think it's outside the remit of this question for us to track down an example of how to do that.
This one works for me:
[DllImport("secur32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
public static extern uint AddSecurityPackage(
string pszPackageName,
SECURITY_PACKAGE_OPTIONS Options
);
[DllImport("secur32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
public static extern uint DeleteSecurityPackage(
string pszPackageName
);
I am trying to call method available in C++ dll
HRESULT WINAPI TestMethod(
_Out_ BOOL *isSuccess,
_In_opt_ DWORD UsernmaeLength,
_Out_opt_ LPWSTR userName );
Wrapper method Which I have written in C# looks like this
[DllImport("Test.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = true ,CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
public static extern int TestMethod (
IntPtr isSuccess,
[In, Optional] int UsernmaeLength,
out string userName
);
I am calling this method in program
Wrapper. TestMethod (isSuccess, 200, out userName);
I am getting System.AccessViolationException
tried changing the C# wrapper method with
[DllImport("Test.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = true ,CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
public static extern int TestMethod (
bool isSuccess,
[In, Optional] int UsernmaeLength,
out string userName
);
//Caller
bool isSuccess = false;
Wrapper. TestMethod (isSuccess, 200, out userName);
Could you please help me to understand what I am doing wrong here?
_In_opt_ DWORD UsernmaeLength
The SAL annotation is not very useful. What it probably is trying to tell you is that you can pass NULL for the string buffer argument. In which case what you pass for the buffer length doesn't matter. It is not actually [Optional], you'd consider simply passing 0 if you really don't want a string back.
The 3rd argument cannot be String or out since that is an immutable type and the function wants to write into the buffer you pass. It must be StringBuilder. The 2nd argument must be its Capacity. Be sure to make the StringBuilder big enough to fit a user name. If it is not then it isn't very obvious what will happen, hopefully the function then just returns an error code instead of silently truncating string. Test that.
The 1st argument is bool passed by reference, [Out] out bool. Not very likely that it SetLastError, that is only done by winapi functions. It already returns an error code embedded in the HResult. A value less than 0 is an error. Stdcall is the default. Summarizing:
[DllImport("Test.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
public static extern int TestMethod (
[Out] out bool isSuccess,
int userNameLength,
StringBuilder userName
);
Called as:
bool success;
var name = new StringBuilder(666);
int hr = TestMethod(out success, name.Capacity, name);
if (hr < 0) Marshal.ThrowExceptionForHR(hr);
If you still have trouble then you need the help of the author of this code if you cannot debug it yourself. Have a small repro available so he can easily repro the issue.
So I created a custom dll callsed FileGuidUtils.dll written in C/C++ and one of the functions returns a WCHAR * string (as a LPWStr in C#). This string gets allocated heap memory inside the function of type (WCHAR *).
Right now I just use the returned string and that's it. Should I be freeing it somewhere in the C#? What code should I use if so? Or is the CLR garbage collector taking care of it for me?
[DllImport(#"FileGuidUtils.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]
private static extern string getReparseTarget([MarshalAsAttribute(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string linkPath);
I occasionally get unhandled out of memory exceptions but am unable to pinpoint the cause because I don't get it very often. For right now I just wanna know if I'm handling the returned string properly?
You are creating a memory leak. .NET can't free memory allocated by malloc, C++ new, or any other allocator of Windows, because it can't know which allocator was used (there are some exceptions on this).
Possible solutions:
1) Return a IntPtr:
private static extern IntPtr getReparseTarget([MarshalAsAttribute(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string linkPath);
and have a corresponding
private static extern void freeMemory(IntPtr ptr);
and then manually rebuild the C# string with PtrToStringUni()
2) Have a function that returns the length needed and then pass a StringBuilder of that length (new StringBuilder(len)):
private static extern int getReparseTargetLength([MarshalAsAttribute(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string linkPath);
private static extern void getReparseTarget([MarshalAsAttribute(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string linkPath, [MarshalAsAttribute(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] StringBuilder output, int maxLen);
3) Use MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BSTR)
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BSTR)]
private static extern string getReparseTarget([MarshalAsAttribute(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string linkPath);
The CLR automatically frees strings allocated as BSTR. Note that you will need to create them as BSTR C++-side (with SysAllocString/SysAllocStringLen).
I have an one question when I use C# DllImport C++ dll, I use the visual studio 2010 & checked the "Enable unmanaged code debugging", when it's running, always show the message "Buffer overrun detected! ... A buffer overrun has been detected which has corrupted the program's internal state. The program cannot safely continue execution and must now be terminated."
This dll is Third-party vendors to provide, and they says it's no error to run this dll, how can i fixed it?
My M++ dll function is,
int avc_to_avi_convert(char* chPath_avc, char* chPath_avi, int pPrivate, PROGRESS_CALLBACK progress_callback);
void avc_to_avi_close(int* pFd_avi);
typedef void (*PROGRESS_CALLBACK)(int iPercent, int pPrivate);
And i am use it in my C# dllimport like this :
public delegate void PROGRESS_CALLBACK(int _iPercent, int _pPrivate);
[DllImportAttribute(#"..\xxx.dll", EntryPoint = "avc_to_avi_convert", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
public static extern unsafe int avc_to_avi_convert([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)] StringBuilder _inputAVC, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)] StringBuilder _ouputAVI, int pPrivate, PROGRESS_CALLBACK _pg);
[DllImportAttribute(#"..\xxx.dll", EntryPoint = "avc_to_avi_close", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
public static extern unsafe void avc_to_avi_close(int pFd_avi);
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
int i = 0;
StringBuilder inputFile = new StringBuilder(Application.StartupPath + #"\avc\abc.avc");//(#"C:\avc\abc.avc");
StringBuilder outputFile = new StringBuilder(Application.StartupPath + #"\avi\abc.avi");//(#"C:\avi\abc.avi");
if (avc_to_avi_convert(
inputFile,
outputFile,
1,
progress_func) > 0) {
}
}
public void progress_func(int iProgress, int pPrivate)
{
if (iProgress == 100)
{
//success
}
else if (iProgress == -1)
{
//convert error
}
else if (iProgress == -2)
{
//Not enough disk space
}
else
{
//update progress
}
}
I changed my code to,
[DllImportAttribute(#"..\xxx.dll", EntryPoint = "avc_to_avi_convert", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
public static extern unsafe int avc_to_avi_convert([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String _inputAVC, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String _ouputAVI, int pPrivate, PROGRESS_CALLBACK _pg);
[DllImportAttribute(#"..\xxx.dll", EntryPoint = "avc_to_avi_close", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
public static extern void avc_to_avi_close(ref int avi);
And ran it, and I still get the same error.
1.) Are you sure about the calling convention? Try CallingConvention.StdCall. Read this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adam_nathan/archive/2003/05/21/56690.aspx
2.) Try a different values for the CharSet attribute and use String instead of StringBuilder for the path arguments. This is a good reference:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/s9ts558h.aspx
3.) Also, the avc_to_avi_close method should look like this:
[DllImportAttribute("xxx.dll", EntryPoint="avc_to_avi_close")]
public static extern void avc_to_avi_close(ref int avi);
4.) Other things you my want to try:
Use unusual combinations of CharSet and MarshalAs. For example you know from the link above that Unicode should be used with LPWStr and Ansi with LPStr but you can of course try other combinations.
Your extern methods need not to be marked unsafe.
If you have exhausted all other options, why don't you try to write a C++ program that is analogous to your C# code:
If it crashes you proved that the error is in the library.
If it doesn't crash you know the error is in your use of PInovke, and you can go through all the 12+ combinations from my answer one by one.
You are passing a delegate to p/invoke and then letting the garbage collector free it. This causes the crash, because when the delegate object is finalized, the trampoline set up to allow calls from native code is deallocated. Then the native code invokes a dangling function pointer.
The garbage collector is totally unaware of any objects being used from inside native code. You MUST keep a reference to the delegate alive for the duration of the call. Try adding a delegate variable (don't use implicit conversion which creates a temporary) and then use GCHandle to keep the delegate alive for as long as the native code is using it.
I have an unmanaged C++ DLL that I have wrapped with a simple C interface so I can call PInvoke on it from C#. Here is an example method in the C wrapper:
const wchar_t* getMyString()
{
// Assume that someWideString is a std::wstring that will remain
// in memory for the life of the incoming calls.
return someWideString.c_str();
}
Here is my C# DLLImport setup.
[DllImport( "my.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl )]
private static extern string GetMyString();
However the string is not correctly marshalled, often screwing up the first character or sometimes way off showing a bunch of chinese characters instead. I have logged output from the implementation on the C side to confirm that the std::wstring is correctly formed.
I have also tried changing the DLLImport to return an IntPtr and convert with a wrapped method using Marshal.PtrToStringUni and it has the same result.
[DllImport( "my.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl )]
private static extern IntPtr GetMyString();
public string GetMyStringMarshal()
{
return Marshal.PtrToStringUni( GetMyString() );
}
Any ideas?
Update with Answer
So as mentioned below, this is not really an issue with my bindings but the lifetime of my wchar_t*. My written assumption was wrong, someWideString was in fact being copied during my calls to the rest of the application. Therefore it existed only on the stack and was being let go before my C# code could finish marshalling it.
The correct solution is to either pass a pointer in to my method as described by shf301, or make sure my wchar_t* reference does not get moved / reallocated / destroyed before my C# interface has time to copy it.
Returning the std::wstring down to my C layer as a "const &std::wstring" means my call to c_str() will return a reference that won't be immediately dealloc'd outside the scope of my C method.
The calling C# code then needs to use Marshal.PtrToStringUni() to copy data from the reference into a managed string.
You are going to have to rewrite your getMyString function for the reasons mentioned in Hans Passant's answer.
You need to have the C# code pass a buffer in to your C++ code. That way the your code (ok, the CLR Marshaller) controls the lifetime of the buffer and you don't get into any undefined behavior.
Below is an implementation:
C++
void getMyString(wchar_t *str, int len)
{
wcscpy_s(str, len, someWideString.c_str());
}
C#
[DllImport( "my.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode )]
private static extern void GetMyString(StringBuffer str, int len);
public string GetMyStringMarshal()
{
StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer(255);
GetMyString(buffer, buffer.Capacity);
return buffer.ToString();
}
You need to specify MarshalAs attribute for the return value:
[DllImport( "my.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
[return : MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]
private static extern string GetMyString();
Make sure the function is indeed cdecl and that the wstring object is not destroyed when the function returns.