Marshal.PtrToStructure support in reflection free Native AOT

[Fabi]

Hey,

while working on a project/lib and tried to make it reflection free I noticed that Marshal.PtrToStructure actually throws "Reflection_Disabled" due to it's usage of Activator.CreateInstance. Marshal.StructureToPtr works fine though.

That makes functions like NetworkInterface.GetAllNetworkInterfaces that result in SystemNetworkInterface.GetNetworkInterfaces calls unusable in reflection free mode.

Are there any plans to fix that or any (safe) alternatives?

[jkotas]

We have no plans to make Marshal.PtrToStructure work in reflection-free mode. Duplicate of #67193.

However, we are usually happy to take PRs to eliminate Marshal.PtrToStructure usage and replace it with manual marshalling that is typically faster and less error prone.

[Fabi]

We have no plans to make Marshal.PtrToStructure work in reflection-free mode. Duplicate of #67193.

However, we are usually happy to take PRs to eliminate Marshal.PtrToStructure usage and replace it with manual marshalling that is typically faster and less error prone.

But isn't this just due to the non generic Activator.CreateInstance usage? The generic one works due to the analyzer catching it and keeping data for it. There is no switch that let us keep data for the non generic function (which calls the non generic one and really not more)

[jkotas]

Marshal.PtrToStructure cannot just use the generic Activator.CreateInstance. Marshal.PtrToStructure allows private constructors that the generic Activator.CreateInstance disallows. Implementing a special version of the generic Activator.CreateInstance just to make this legacy API work in reflection-free mode is not worth it.

[jkotas]

I have fixed up PtrToStructure instances you have mentioned and a few more in #70866