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Calling unmanaged DLL from vb.net

I need to consume an unmanaged (WIN32) DLL with my VB.NET application. I have read several articles and gone in circles in the MS documentation about doing this. All my attempts result in a "stack imbalance" exception. The first method I need to access takes a pointer to a structure as a parameter and returns a value from an enumeration:

AVRPODS_API IDBE_ERROR avr_init(AVR_POD_OPTIONS *lpsEepromOptions);

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The structure looks like this:

typedef struct tagPodOptions {
	int					iPodType ;
	unsigned char		ucJTAGClockDelay ;
	AVR_EEPROM_CONTROL	eEepromControl ;
	wchar_t				wcsEepromFilename[MAX_PATH] ;
} AVR_POD_OPTIONS ;

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My last attempt wit the VB.NET code looks like this:

    <StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)> _
    Public Structure podOptions
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U4)> Public iPodType As Integer
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U1)> Public ucClockDelay As Char
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U4)> Public eEEPROMControl As Integer
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)> Public eepromFilename As String
    End Structure
    '
    Public Enum IDBE_ERROR
        eOK         ' just a dummy for now
    End Enum

    <DllImport("avr_pods", SetLastError:=True, CharSet:=CharSet.Auto)> _
    Private Shared Function avr_init(ByRef eepromOptions As podOptions) As IDBE_ERROR
    End Function

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Thanks,
Sid.

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it_saige

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Sid Price

ASKER

Thank you, that is a very comprehensive article however I am having trouble translating it to VB.NET because it would appear that my code should work. The only issues I thought it had were with the return type and the string pointer in the structure so I changed them to:

    <StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)> _
    Public Structure podOptions
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U4)> Public iPodType As Integer
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U1)> Public ucClockDelay As Char
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U4)> Public eEEPROMControl As Integer
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)> Public eepromFilename As String
    End Structure
    '
    <DllImport("avr_pods", SetLastError:=True, CharSet:=CharSet.Auto)> _
    Private Shared Function avr_init(ByRef eepromOptions As podOptions) As Integer
    End Function

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I still got the same exception, so I must still be doing something wrong here.
Sid.

Ark

It may depend on platform. For x64 pointer should be IntPtr, not Integer

Sid Price

ASKER

Ark, I don't understand what you wrote ... the only pointer is the parameter "eepromOptions", I did not use "Integer" as a pointer. The return value is an enum value.
Sid.

Sid Price

ASKER

I have resolved the problem by adding a "CallingConvention" attribute to the "DllImport" statement:

    
<DllImport("avr_pods", SetLastError:=True, CharSet:=CharSet.Auto, CallingConvention:=CallingConvention.Cdecl)> _
Private Shared Function avr_init(ByRef eepromOptions As podOptions) As Integer
End Function

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Sid.

Sid Price

ASKER

This article while not directly applicable to VB.NET did lead me to question my code and ultimately to the answer.
Sid.