I'm doing a lot of PInvoking lately. One of the hard parts is mapping the unmanaged datatypes found in c++ include files to managed datatypes.
I found a nice article on codeproject with a list of the most common mappings. I'll repeat the list here so I can find it easilly, maybe other people can benefit from it too. I'll keep the list up-to-date with my own mappings and some remarks.
| Unmanaged |
Managed |
Remarks |
| BOOL, BOOLEAN |
Boolean, Int32 |
A 32 bit field set to 0 for FALSE and 1 for TRUE |
| BSTR |
String |
|
| BYTE |
SByte |
Signed byte, the original article has BYTE and UBYTE switched around. |
| CHAR |
Char |
CHAR is single byte ANSI character, Char is a dual byte Unicode character. Byte may be a better mapping. |
| DOUBLE |
Double |
|
| DWORD |
UInt32 |
The original article also said Int32, but DWORD is always unsigned |
| FLOAT |
Single |
|
| GUID |
Guid |
GUID is actually a c struct consisting of different integer values. The framework marshalls this to a Guid value. |
| HANDLE |
IntPtr |
32 bits on x86, 64 bits on 64 bit platforms.
Also used for other handles like HFONT and HMENU |
| HRESULT |
Int32 |
The original artilcle also said UInt32 but HRESULT is defined as signed |
| INT |
Int32 |
|
| LANGID |
Int16 or UInt16 |
|
| LCID |
Int32 or UInt32 |
|
| LONG |
Int32 |
|
| LPARAM |
IntPtr, UIntPtr or Object |
Value can represent different things depending on context. 32 or 64 bits depending on platform. |
| LPCSTR, LPCTSTR, LPCWSTR |
String |
|
| LPSTR, LPTSTR, LPWSTR |
String |
String is immutable so use StringBuilder instead of String if the string can change in unmanaged code |
| LPVOID |
IntPtr, UIntPtr or Object |
|
| LRESULT |
IntPtr |
Value can represent different things depending on context. 32 or 64 bits depending on platform. |
| SAFEARRAY |
.NET array type |
|
| SHORT |
Int16 |
|
| TCHAR |
Char |
|
| UCHAR |
Byte |
|
| UINT |
UInt32 |
|
| ULONG |
UInt32 |
|
| UUID |
Guid |
Not sure if this works. GUID and UUID datatype are about the same so it should. |
| VARIANT |
Object |
|
| VARIANT_BOOL |
Boolean |
|
| WCHAR |
Char |
16 bit Unicode character |
| WORD |
UInt16 |
The original article also said Int32 but WORD is unsigned only. |
| WPARAM |
IntPtr, UIntPtr or Object |
Value can represent different things depending on context. 32 or 64 bits depending on platform. |
Most of the unmanaged datatypes are defined in windef.h. Microsoft has a page on MSDN here with descriptions.
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