IDynamicInterfaceCastable: Supporting Interfaces Dynamically

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The IDynamicInterfaceCastable API was introduced in .NET 5 as a way for creating a .NET class that supports interfaces which are not in its metadata.

This sample provides an implementation of IDynamicInterfaceCastable that projects a native object as implementing different known managed interfaces. It uses COM conventions (such as QueryInterface) for interacting with the native object, but does not require the actual COM system.

Note

The sample uses Marshal APIs as part of interacting with the native library. The introduction of C# function pointers will allow that interaction to occur in a more performant manner.

Prerequisites

Build and Run

  1. In order to build and run, all prerequisites must be installed. The following are also required:

    • On Linux/macOS, the C++ compiler (g++) must be on the path.
    • The C++ compiler (cl.exe or g++) and dotnet must be the same bitness (32-bit versus 64-bit).
      • On Windows, the sample is set up to use the bitness of dotnet to find the corresponding cl.exe

  2. Navigate to the root directory.

  3. Run the sample. Do one of the following:

    • Use dotnet run (which will build and run at the same time).
    • Use dotnet build to build the executable. The executable will be in bin under a subdirectory for the configuration (Debug is the default).
      • Windows: bin\Debug\IDynamicInterfaceCastableSample.exe
      • Non-Windows: bin/Debug/IDynamicInterfaceCastableSample

The expected output will show information about the native objects as they are represented in manage as well as results from calls to the native objects:

Native Object #0
 - does not implement IGreet
 - does not implement ICompute

Native Object #1
 - implements IGreet
    -- Hello World from NativeObject #1
 - does not implement ICompute

Native Object #2
 - does not implement IGreet
 - implements ICompute
    -- Returned sum: 5

Native Object #3
 - implements IGreet
    -- Hello World from NativeObject #3
 - implements ICompute
    -- Returned sum: 6

Note: The way the sample is built is relatively complicated. The goal is that it's possible to build and run the sample with simple dotnet run with minimal requirements on pre-installed tools. Typically real-world projects which have both managed and native components will use different build systems for each; for example msbuild/dotnet for managed and CMake for native.

Visual Studio support

The src\IDynamicInterfaceCastableSample.sln can be used to open the sample in Visual Studio 2019. In order to be able to build from Visual Studio, though, it has to be started from the correct developer environment. From the developer environment console, start it with devenv src\IDynamicInterfaceCastableSample.sln. With that, the solution can be built. To run it, set the start project to IDynamicInterfaceCastableSample.