ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator 21.1.8.4

ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator

ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator is a .NET tool that generates strongly-typed C#/.NET P/Invoke bindings from C and C++ header files by parsing them with libclang. It is part of the ClangSharp project, which is self-hosted and uses this tool to auto-generate its own bindings.

Installing

Install the generator as a global .NET tool:

dotnet tool install --global ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator

NOTE: The generator depends on the native libClang and libClangSharp libraries. When running as a .NET tool, you may need to manually copy the appropriate native DLLs from the libClang and libClangSharp packages due to limitations in the .NET tool support. See #46 and #118 for details.

Usage

At a minimum, the tool expects one or more input files (-f), an output namespace (-n), and an output location (-o):

ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator -f example.h -n Example.Namespace -o Example.cs

The simplest and recommended setup is to use a response file, which lets you specify and check in the command line arguments in a text file with one argument per line:

ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator @generate.rsp

See GenerateClang.rsp for a real-world example. A typical response file also specifies explicit files to traverse, configuration options, name remappings, and other fixups.

You can see the full set of available switches by passing --help, and the available configuration options by passing -c help.

More information

• Best practices for driving the generator: https://github.com/dotnet/ClangSharp/blob/main/docs/generating-bindings-best-practices.md
• Full documentation and the list of options: https://github.com/dotnet/ClangSharp#generating-bindings
• Source repository: https://github.com/dotnet/ClangSharp

License

Copyright (c) .NET Foundation and Contributors. All Rights Reserved. Licensed under the MIT License (MIT). See LICENSE.md in the repository root for more information.