C/C++ to C# converter or emulator

Question

Assume that I have some C code for a portable, non-visual library. The code relies mostly on CRT (there is no QT/DirectX/WinAPI etc. dependencies).

Is there a way I could use this code in a C# application? I know about Managed C++ and that's not an acceptable way for me.

I thought of a C/C++ to C# converter that I could use for automatic translation (I don't need a readable output, a working one is enough) or an emulator that I could use to execute compiled C/C++ code.

Do you know of anything that might help me to use existing C/C++ code from C# code?

EDIT:

P/Invoke is not an acceptable way too. As well as calling external EXE or using COM/ActiveX. I need something that will allow me to incorporate C and C# code into one managed DLL or EXE.

Existing C code is a library (.lib), not an EXE.

Is this C code a proper executable or just a library? Anyway you could use P/Invoke for C library or execute in case of an exe and catch the output — RedX, Jul 02 '12 at 12:45
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/935664/possible-to-call-c-code-from-c — Govind Malviya, Jul 02 '12 at 12:45
Translation is unlikely to be practical, as C# code does not have pointers and translating pointer-based code to non-pointer-based code is virtually impossible to automate. — Thom Smith, Jul 02 '12 at 12:50
Why is it so critical to have one single file as the output? It's not very usual for windows apps to have a single executable and no accompanying files. — Qnan, Jul 02 '12 at 12:57
@MikhailKozhevnikov because I know plenty of methods to do this without this restriction ;-) — Bobrovsky, Jul 02 '12 at 12:58
Based on "Existing code is a `.lib`", do you have source code or not? — Ben Voigt, Jul 02 '12 at 13:14
@Thom: Pointers may not be recommended style in C#, but they certainly do exist. — Ben Voigt, Jul 02 '12 at 14:34
If you don't need to maintain the code, why won't you create a DLL and reference it... such as COM+ object — Tomer W, Jul 02 '12 at 12:47

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 02 '12 at 13:11

7

Why not temporarily compile the C++ as managed C++, to get a .net assembly, then use Reflector to decompile it into pure C#?

answered Jul 02 '12 at 13:11

Neil

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This is as close to automated as you can get, however the results are not likely to be pretty. – Ben Voigt Jul 02 '12 at 13:13
@MikhailKozhevnikov: Pure managed, yes. Safe and verifiable, no. As a result, not all pure C++/CLI assemblies can be perfectly decompiled to C#. – Ben Voigt Jul 02 '12 at 14:32
+1 this is ugly but it's the only answer that seems to solve OP's problem. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Jul 02 '12 at 14:55
It looks like this is the only *automated* way. – Bobrovsky Jul 16 '12 at 06:56

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 02 '12 at 12:53

I think it's easiest to use the methods directly from the DLL without converting the code to C#. That works pretty well, one disadvantage being that you have to ship multiple binaries for different platforms. Importing functions from Dll is as easy as

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
public static extern IntPtr GetProcAddress (IntPtr hModule, string procedureName);

I don't think incorporating both C and C# code in one DLL is feasible without converting the former.

C/C++ to C# converter or emulator

2 Answers2