[Mono-dev] [PATCH] Add mixed-mode assembly support on Windows

[Kornél Pál]

Hi,

I have attached my proposed patch.

I need some help to finish mono_marshal_get_vtfixup_ftnptr. It should
generate a wrapper method based on the method token.
types:
VTFIXUP_TYPE_FROM_UNMANAGED: unmanaged-to-managed wrapper (otherwise
managed-to-managed)
VTFIXUP_TYPE_CALL_MOST_DERIVED: callvirt (otherwise call)
VTFIXUP_TYPE_RETAIN_APPDOMAIN: not important yet

I would like to implement mono_marshal_get_vtfixup_ftnptr but I don't know
where should I cache these methods and how can I obtain a marshaler wrapper
without using delegates.

Also note that I was unable to build the patch using gcc:
/mono/mono/mono/metadata/domain.c:1172: undefined reference to 
`_MonoFixupCorEE at 4'
/mono/mono/mono/metadata/domain.c:1217: undefined reference to 
`_MonoFixupExe at 4'

And I have no idea why it builds with MSVC and not with gcc.

_CorDllMain and _CorExeMain is not finished yet but is only required for
Wine support so I didn't include them in the patch yet. They will call
runtime initialization code. MonoFixupCorEE is intended to be called from
Wine's mscoree.dll as well.

Kornél

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Miguel de Icaza" <Miguel at novell.com>
To: <kornelpal at gmail.com>
Cc: <mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 7:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Mono-dev] Mono on wine redux


Wow.

Well, that was fast.   Congrats Kornel!

-----Original Message-----
From: Kornél Pál <kornelpal at gmail.com>
Cc:  <mono-devel-list at lists.ximian.com>
To: Miguel de Icaza <Miguel at novell.com>

Sent: 4/17/2008 3:17:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Mono-dev] Mono on wine redux

Hi,

> From: "Miguel de Icaza" <miguel at novell.com>
>> But what percent of .net apps are pure?  If that fraction is small,
>> as I suspect it is, then for Mono to really rock the world, it's going
>> to have to tackle impure apps, too.  That is of course incredibly
>> difficult,
>> and would require considerable cooperation between the Mono and Wine
>> projects.
>
> It is very hard to run into a mixed-mode assembly in the wild;   They do
> happen, but they are rare.   I can only think of three projects that had
> needed them in the history of Mono.

I've done some work on this. And actually I managed to run mixed-mode
assemblies.

Note that it is only possible on Windows because native code is usually
platform (arch and OS as well) dependent.

I implemented support for loading image files using LoadLibrary so that the
NT loader will take care of the image patching. I also had to patch the
in-memory image of mscoree.dll so that export address table point to
functions in mono.dll that is required for LoadLibrary support. This also
will enable Wine (and Windows is someone is willing to replace or modify his
on-disk mscoree.dll image) to execute managed images using CreateProcess
without creating a mono.exe child process. This was the hardest part.

IJW thunks (managed-to-native) are really P/Invoke methods with function RVA
stored in method body RVA so it was very easy to implement, I only had to
remove code preventing IJW from work.

V-table fixups (native-to-managed) are not difficult either but requires
it's own wrapper methods so my current implementation probably will need
improvements.

Note that this still will not make Mono able to use MSVCRT because that uses
unmanaged API of .NET Framework that isn't implemented by Mono.

I am stilll working on a cleaned-up patch but will send to the list soon.

Kornél

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