.NET Common Language Runtime Unleashed

Chapter 7. Leveraging Existing Code—P/Invoke

In This Chapter

• Platform Invoke Overview

• Why Platform Invoke Interop?

• Some Other Interop Methods

• Details of Platform Invoke

• Performance Considerations with P/Invoke

A quote by Albert Einstein is a good way to start this chapter: “Keep it simple, but not too simple.” In other words, the material should be simple but sufficiently complete to answer the problem. In recent software history, major languages acknowledge their dependency on “legacy” software (“legacy” would refer to the way software was developed before a particular language was introduced) through some method of interoperation. With C++, you called on 'C' functions by specifying the function as extern "C". Java used JNI. Even most flavors of ...