C# StructLayout.Explicit Question

Question

I'm trying to understand why the second example below works with no issues, but the first example gives me the exception below. It seems to me that both examples should give an exception based on the description. Can anyone enlighten me?

Unhandled Exception: System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'StructTest.OuterType' from assembly 'StructTest, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' because it contains an object field at offset 0 that is incorrectly aligned or overlapped by a non-object field.
at StructTest.Program.Main(String[] args) Press any key to continue . . .

Example 1

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Text;

namespace StructTest
{
    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, Pack = 1)]
    struct InnerType
    {
        [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst = 100)]
        char[] buffer;
    }

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit)]
    struct OuterType
    {
        [FieldOffset(0)]
        int someValue;

        [FieldOffset(0)]
        InnerType someOtherValue;
    }

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            OuterType t = new OuterType();
            System.Console.WriteLine(t);
        }
    }
}

---

Example 2

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Text;

namespace StructTest
{
    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, Pack = 1)]
    struct InnerType
    {
        [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst = 100)]
        char[] buffer;
    }

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit)]
    struct OuterType
    {
        [FieldOffset(4)]
        private int someValue;

        [FieldOffset(0)]
        InnerType someOtherValue;

    }

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            OuterType t = new OuterType();
            System.Console.WriteLine(t);
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

The common language runtime contains a verifier that makes sure the running code (verifiable IL) cannot possibly corrupt memory in the managed environment. This prevents you to declare such a structure in which fields overlap. Basically, your struct contains two data members. One integer (which is 4 bytes) and a native integer (pointer size). On a 32 bit CLR, in which you are probably running your code, the char[] will take 4 bytes so if you put the integer less than four bytes away from the beginning of the struct, you'll have overlapping fields. It's interesting to note that both of your code snippets with fail on a 64 bit runtime, as the pointer size is 8 bytes.

Answer 2

I figured I'd respond with the solution I used to create the union -- which was my original intention. I used an unsafe struct and a fixed array and then used a property to interact with the fixed array. I believe this should do what I want.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Text;

namespace StructTest
{

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit)]
    unsafe struct OuterType
    {
        private const int BUFFER_SIZE = 100;

        [FieldOffset(0)]
        private int transactionType;

        [FieldOffset(0)]
        private fixed byte writeBuffer[BUFFER_SIZE];

        public int TransactionType
        {
            get { return transactionType; }
            set { transactionType = value; }
        }

        public char[] WriteBuffer
        {
            set
            {
                char[] newBuffer = value;

                fixed (byte* b = writeBuffer)
                {
                    byte* bptr = b;
                    for (int i = 0; i < newBuffer.Length; i++)
                    {
                         *bptr++ = (byte) newBuffer[i];
                    }
                }
            }

            get
            {
                char[] newBuffer = new char[BUFFER_SIZE];

                fixed (byte* b = writeBuffer)
                {
                    byte* bptr = b;
                    for (int i = 0; i < newBuffer.Length; i++)
                    {
                        newBuffer[i] = (char) *bptr++;
                    }
                }

                return newBuffer;
            }
        }
    }

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            OuterType t = new OuterType();
            System.Console.WriteLine(t);
        }
    }
}