Please suggest infrastructure for passing data between C# and C++

Question

I'm using P/invoke to interoperate between C# and C++ in this project. I'd like to pass data structures that are symmetrically defined. What's the best infrastructure to use? Could protocol buffers be useful here?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

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I would suggest to use C++/CLI since you can use the same header files / definition files in both worlds. One of the main goals for developing C++ CLI was to fill the gap between the managed and the unamanaged world. This article gives you even more advantages.

In the MSDN there is a nice description how C++cli works and how you can use it.

see also here

edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

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answered May 18 '11 at 18:07

schoetbi

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 18 '11 at 18:15

If it's an option, you may want to look into using COM. Define .NET classes that are COM visible and have the InterfaceType ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsDual, and decorate each parameter with the MarshalAs(UnmanagedType) attribute, then the C++ app can marshal objects that can be passed between managed and unmanaged code.

The "Symmetrical definition" is handled because the interface is defined in COM, plus COM gives you a little more error handling and visibility into what is going on than straight P/Invoke.

Please suggest infrastructure for passing data between C# and C++

2 Answers2