C#: marshalling a struct that contains arrays

Question

I am doing some C# interop work. I have the following struct:

#pragma pack(push,1)
typedef struct
{
    unsigned __int64 Handle;
    LinkType_t Type;
    Lin         


        

Answer 1

What Anton Tykhyy says is correct. I just want to clarify with some examples. Using 'fixed' works, but that forces you to use 'unsafe' as well. I like to avoid using unsafe wherever possible. Using Marshal is a way to get around that.

First, let's say that I have a library that was created in C with the following definitions.

typedef struct {
    int messageType;
    BYTE payload[60];
} my_message;

/**
* \param[out] msg    Where the message will be written to
*/
void receiveMessage(my_message *msg);

/*
* \param[in] msg    The message that will be sent
*/
void sendMessage(my_message *msg);

In C#, the following structure would be equivalent to the one in C.

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, Size = 64), Serializable]
struct my_message
{
    int messageType;
    [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray,SizeConst = 60)]
    byte[] payload;

    public initializeArray()
    {
        //explicitly initialize the array
        payload = new byte[60];
    }
}

Since the msg in receiveMessage() is documented as [out], you don't need to do anything special to the array in the structure before passing it to the function. i.e.:

my_message msg = new my_message();
receiveMessage(ref msg);
byte payload10 = msg.payload[10];

Since the msg in sendMessage() is documented as [in], you will need to fill the array before calling the function. Before filling the array, the array needs to be explicitly instantiated before using it. i.e.:

my_message msg = new my_message();
msg.initializeArray();
msg.payload[10] = 255;
sendMessage(ref msg);

Calling initializeArray() should instantiate the array in the previously allocated space created within the struct for this array.