[Mono-list] Managed C++ assemblies and Mono

[Patrick Hartling]

Sergey Chaban wrote:
>>As long as it is only the initialization code, the few routines that are
>>used can be faked, so that should be no problem.
> 
> 
> I think the problem here is finding managed entry point.
> Say, C++ compiler generates _mainCRTStartup() entry, this is embedded
> x86 code, how would you find managed entry without interpreting mainCRTStartup?
> You can't rely on the naming, because even though managed entry for MC++ would
> be called "main", it's just a convention - some .NET obfuscators already replace
> this with something else. Well, unless I'm missing something :-)

For my case, I am worried more about the "entry point" into the native 
library.  That is, within a Managed C++ wrapper class, any calls made to 
heap-allocated instances of unmanaged C++ code.  That is where the 
problems occur.

> BTW, to produce pure IL from C++ code the following options needed for the linker
> (assuming that -clr option is already used for the compiler):
> $link -nodefaultlib -entry:main mscoree.lib

Thanks, I'll check the options being used when the assembly is linked.

> But anyway original question was about using MC++ to interact with C++ libs compiled
> to _native_ code, if I understood the post correctly. I think in such case a C interface and
> P/Invoke would be a much better choice.

I would agree that for a native C interface (e.g., GTK+), that would be 
better.  From what I have seen of P/Invoke, however, it seems undesirable 
for use with a C++ API due to all the static methods.  What it really 
comes down to is that I want to write a class in C# that implements an 
interface defined in unmanaged C++.  An instance of the C# class would be 
passed through to unmanaged C++ code.  There are a lot of details 
involved with this, but the inherent object-oriented nature does not seem 
to lend itself well to the structure of P/Invoke-style code.

  -Patrick


-- 
Patrick L. Hartling                     | Research Assistant, VRAC
patrick@vrac.iastate.edu                | 2624 Howe Hall: 1.515.294.4916
http://www.137.org/patrick/             | http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/