P/Invoke tries to make your life easier by automatically converting (“marshalling”) data types from managed code to native code and the other way around.

See also:

• P/Invoke Tutorial: Basics (Part 1)
• P/Invoke Tutorial: Passing strings (Part 2)
• P/Invoke Tutorial: Pinning (Part 4)

Marshalling Primitive Data Types #

Primitive data types (bool, int, double, …) are the easiest to use. They map directly to their native counterparts.

C# type	C/C++ type	Bytes	Range
bool	bool (with int fallback)	usually 1	true or false
char	wchar_t (or char if necessary)	2 (1)	Unicode BMP
byte	unsigned char	1	0 to 255
sbyte	char	1	-128 to 127
short	short	2	-32,768 to 32,767
ushort	unsigned short	2	0 to 65,535
int	int	4	-2 billion to 2 billion
uint	unsigned int	4	0 to 4 billion
long	__int64	8	-9 quintillion to 9 quintillion
ulong	unsigned __int64	8	0 to 18 quintillion
float	float	4	7 significant decimal digits
double	double	8	15 significant decimal digits

Marshalling Strings #

For passing strings, it’s recommended that you pass them as Unicode strings (if possible). For this, you need to specify Char.Unicode like this:

[DllImport("NativeLib.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
private static extern void do_something(string str);

This requires the C/C++ parameter type be a wchar_t*:

void do_something(const wchar_t* str);

For more details, see P/Invoke Tutorial: Passing strings (Part 2).

Marshalling Arrays #

Arrays of primitive types can be passed directly.

[DllImport("NativeLib.dll")]
private static extern void do_something(byte[] data);

Marshalling Objects #

To be able to pass objects you need to make their memory layout sequential:

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
class MyClass {
  ...
}

This ensures that the fields are stored in the same order they’re written in code. (Without this attribute the C# compiler reorder fields around to optimize the data structure.)

Then simply use the object’s class directly:

[DllImport("NativeLib.dll")]
private static extern void do_something(MyClass data);

The object will be passed by reference (either as struct* or struct&) to the C function:

typedef struct {
  ...
} MyClass;

void do_something(MyClass* data);

Marshalling Structs #

Marshalling managed structs is almost identical to marshalling objects with only one difference: structs are passed by copy by default.

So for structs the C/C++ function signature reads:

void do_something(MyClass data);

Of course, you can pass the struct also by reference. In this case, use (MyClass* data) or (MyClass& data) in C/C++ and (ref MyClass data) in C#.

Marshalling Delegates #

Delegates are marshalled directly. The only thing you need to take care of is the “calling convention”. The default calling convention is Winapi (which equals to StdCall on Windows). If your native library uses a different calling convention, you need to specify it like this:

[UnmanagedFunctionPointer(CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
public delegate void MyDelegate(IntPtr value);

Marshalling Arbitrary Pointers #

Arbitrary pointers (like void*) are marshalled as IntPtr objects.

So this C function:

void do_something(void* ptr);

becomes:

[DllImport("NativeLib.dll")]
private static extern void do_something(IntPtr ptr);