VSTO calling unmanged function

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scot_paro

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Hi, I'm really struggling with this so any help would be appreciated.


Outlook 2007, VS2008 Pro, VSTO 3, XP Pro x64 (dev) and x32 (test).




I've a C++ dll with a bunch of functions to handle the registry, some custom authentication of the product, and some comms. I'd rather not have to rewrite them in VB.NET/C# (I'm primarily a C++ developer). There are extern "C" wrappers for the C++ calls.




The product was originally done in VBA, and everything works fine there :)




I've written an add-in and I've got the pinvoke stuff in place. I can call Win32 functions - for testing, I pop up a message box and get the system directory. All is well, works exactly as I'd expect.


However, when I call the functions in my unmanaged dll, the functions get entered, but their arguments are garbage. I'm passing in a StringBuilder to get a string of text back, but writing to the StringBuilder parameter in the unmanged function (wchar_t*) causes an access violation.


I've written a test project to make sure there's nothing funny with my machine setup. I've got my unmanaged dll and a VB.NET console app. The unmanaged functions return an int, accept a string, modify the string as a side effect, and it all works fine.


But, when I do exactly the same thing in the add-in, it fails :(




Is there something I'm missing? Is this a CAS issue? Does VSTO just not like unmanaged code? :confused:




Thanks.


-R.
 
What if instead of passing a StringBuilder object you pass a string and

Marshal it as UnmanagedType.BStr, does that work?

"scot_paro" <scot_paro.3y5jco@invalid> wrote in message

news:scot_paro.3y5jco@invalid...

> Hi, I'm really struggling with this so any help would be appreciated.
> Outlook 2007, VS2008 Pro, VSTO 3, XP Pro x64 (dev) and x32 (test).

> I've a C++ dll with a bunch of functions to handle the registry, some
> custom authentication of the product, and some comms. I'd rather not
> have to rewrite them in VB.NET/C# (I'm primarily a C++ developer).
> There are extern "C" wrappers for the C++ calls.

> The product was originally done in VBA, and everything works fine there
> :)

> I've written an add-in and I've got the pinvoke stuff in place. I can
> call Win32 functions - for testing, I pop up a message box and get the
> system directory. All is well, works exactly as I'd expect.
> However, when I call the functions in my unmanaged dll, the functions
> get entered, but their arguments are garbage. I'm passing in a
> StringBuilder to get a string of text back, but writing to the
> StringBuilder parameter in the unmanged function (wchar_t*) causes an
> access violation.
> I've written a test project to make sure there's nothing funny with my
> machine setup. I've got my unmanaged dll and a VB.NET console app. The
> unmanaged functions return an int, accept a string, modify the string as
> a side effect, and it all works fine.
> But, when I do exactly the same thing in the add-in, it fails :(

> Is there something I'm missing? Is this a CAS issue? Does VSTO just
> not like unmanaged code? :confused:

> Thanks.
> -R.

> > scot_paro
> >
 
Thanks Ken, but it makes no difference at all. I've changed my test program and my application, and the test program works fine (as it always has) but the VSTO application fails with an access violation, as before.




The really confusing thing is that the first argument in the unmanaged functions is the address of an object obtained via the dll - I'm wrapping a C++ object - and this works fine.


I'm using the recommended approach and allocating the buffer in the VB.NET side, then passing this to the unmanaged dll.


The unmanaged functions are __stdcall and it's a Unicode build.




:confused:


-R.




- said:
What if instead of passing a StringBuilder object you pass a string and


Marshal it as UnmanagedType.BStr, does that work?




--


















"scot_paro" <scot_paro.3y5jco@invalid> wrote in message


news:scot_paro.3y5jco@invalid...

>

> Hi, I'm really struggling with this so any help would be appreciated.

> Outlook 2007, VS2008 Pro, VSTO 3, XP Pro x64 (dev) and x32 (test).

>

> I've a C++ dll with a bunch of functions to handle the registry, some

> custom authentication of the product, and some comms. I'd rather not

> have to rewrite them in VB.NET/C# (I'm primarily a C++ developer).

> There are extern "C" wrappers for the C++ calls.

>

> The product was originally done in VBA, and everything works fine there

> :)

>

> I've written an add-in and I've got the pinvoke stuff in place. I can

> call Win32 functions - for testing, I pop up a message box and get the

> system directory. All is well, works exactly as I'd expect.

> However, when I call the functions in my unmanaged dll, the functions

> get entered, but their arguments are garbage. I'm passing in a

> StringBuilder to get a string of text back, but writing to the

> StringBuilder parameter in the unmanged function (wchar_t*) causes an

> access violation.

> I've written a test project to make sure there's nothing funny with my

> machine setup. I've got my unmanaged dll and a VB.NET console app. The

> unmanaged functions return an int, accept a string, modify the string as

> a side effect, and it all works fine.

> But, when I do exactly the same thing in the add-in, it fails :(

>

> Is there something I'm missing? Is this a CAS issue? Does VSTO just

> not like unmanaged code? :confused:

>

> Thanks.

> -R.

>

>

> --

> scot_paro

>

>
Click to expand...
 
Fixed it!! :D




It's always the way of these things. As I was typing my first reply I was thinking about the first parameter I was passing and wondering if I was somehow corrupting the stack with it. Well, I was! I was passing the address as a Long, which in VB.NET land is 64 bits. My functions were declared as having 4 byte parameters in C/C++ land (32 bit), so when my 64 bit value landed in a space expecting a 32 bit value, things got a bit out of shape after that. D'Oh!


I've changed the Long to an Integer (I should probably really marshal it as a pointer) and everything is working fine.




-R.






scot_paro said:
Thanks Ken, but it makes no difference at all. I've changed my test program and my application, and the test program works fine (as it always has) but the VSTO application fails with an access violation, as before.




The really confusing thing is that the first argument in the unmanaged functions is the address of an object obtained via the dll - I'm wrapping a C++ object - and this works fine.


I'm using the recommended approach and allocating the buffer in the VB.NET side, then passing this to the unmanaged dll.


The unmanaged functions are __stdcall and it's a Unicode build.




:confused:


-R.
Click to expand...
 
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