SDL 2 C# - Opening a joystick device

Question

I'm trying to port an old project of mine from DirectX to SDL2. I'm using SDL2-CS because the only other binding I was available to find is C# SDL2, which seems to be outdated (last unstable version is 6.1.1beta in 2010, last stable - 6.1.0 in 2008)

Joystick (Logitech Force 3D Pro/Logitech Attack 3) is fully functional and working in Linux using SDL2 and DirectX 10 in Windows. Here is my Joystick-Hello-world in C# (using default Console Application project in VS2010; reference to SDL2-CS.dll (SDL2.dll is also present in the folder where the EXE is created) is also there and compiles/runs without any errors):

    using System;
    using System.Collection.Generic;
    using System.Linq;
    using System.Text;
    using SDL2;

    namespace Joystick_In_SDL_2_For_CSharp
    {
       class Program
       {
          static void Main(string[] args)
          {
             SDL.SDL_Init(SDL.SDL_INIT_EVERYTHING);
             IntPtr myJoystick = SLD.SDL_Joystick(0);

             if(myJoystick == IntPtr.Zero)
                System.Console.WriteLine("Ooops, something fishy's goin' on here!" + SDL.SDL_GetError());
             else
                System.Console.WriteLine("You have successfully loaded the joystick \"" + SDL.SDL_JoystickName(myJoystick) + "\"");

             SDL.SDL_JoystickClose(myJoystick);
          }
       }
    }

Console displays the "Ooops"-message, the result from SDL.SDL_GetError() is There are 0 joysticks available and name is naturally = null. At least in Linux device index for me has always been == 0 (I've tested with 1,2,3...), because I have only had a single joystick connected to my notebook at a certain point in time. Do I have to add something more? Ideas, tips and/or criticism is most welcome!

Thanks, RBA

You can probably remove the entire first paragraph, as it doesn't really add much to the question (except a large block of text that might make people skip your question). Although do leave the types of controllers you are testing on, as that might be important. — Mark Hildreth, Jan 17 '14 at 14:13
Thanks. Changed the first paragraph. Will keep the info about porting from DirectX to SDL2 and the other SDL2-binding for C# though because someone might suggest a better SDL2-C#-binding if there is one. — rbaleksandar, Jan 17 '14 at 14:34

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 26 '14 at 14:53

The solution of this problem was given to me by the maintainer of the SDL2 C# wrapper on Github - flibitijibibo. He pointed out that he had read somewhere that Windows requires the [STAThread]-attribute for the main() in order to get the SDL2-joystick (I suppose also SDL2-gamecontroller) working on Windows. Sadly this does not change the situation if you are using Linux and Mono where with or without the above mentioned attribute it doesn't work. This is due to some hidden deep down handling of the hardware, which sadly translates to the API also.

[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] args){ ... }

SDL 2 C# - Opening a joystick device

1 Answers1