Think of the following scenario: a library (say zlib) is compiled
to managed code (so we have zlib.dll).
Another existing C program that we want to compile to managed code
uses zlib (which means its sources include the zlib headers).
Now, the zlib headers do not contain any mapping attribute (and
IMHO they should stay as they are), so we need another way to tell
the C compiler how to map those calls.
I presume the C compiler generates a class with a lot of static
methods, one for each C function.
One easy way to specify the mapping outside of the header files
would be to tell the compiler "all the static methods of these
classes are managed C functions, and they have precedence over
their unmanaged dllimported ones".
Since the C namespace (for linking) is flat, this should work very
well.
My current plan is to use the linker to automatically determine and
resolve such
cases by generating the appropriate P/Invoke declarations. This is on my TODO
list for this week.
I meant: generating P/Invoke declarations for the native calls, and the
appropriate 'metadata references' for the managed functions. We can
address the
issue of conflicting unmanaged and managed libraries by specifying
precedence to
the linker, but typically that problem should not occur, since you probably
would not specify both the managed and unmanaged zlib libraries to the linker
when linking your application.
-Jey Kottalam
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