dynamic-invoke.md

Dynamically invoke .NET APIs from JavaScript

For examples of this scenario, see ../examples/dynamic-invoke/ or ../examples/semantic-kernel/.

1. (Optional but recommended) Create a .csproj project (without any .cs source files) that will manage restoring nuget packages for .NET assemblies used by JS:

   <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
     <PropertyGroup>
       <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
       <OutDir>bin</OutDir>
       <GenerateNodeApiTypeDefinitionsForReferences>true</GenerateNodeApiTypeDefinitionsForReferences>
     </PropertyGroup>
     <ItemGroup>
       <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.JavaScript.NodeApi.Generator" Version="0.7.*" />
       <PackageReference Include="Example.Package" Version="1.2.3" />
       <PackageReference Include="Example.Package.Two" Version="2.3.4" />
     </ItemGroup>
   </Project>

   • The TargetFramework should match the version of .NET that the JS application will load.
   • For convenience the OutDir can be simply set to bin because there are no object files or debug/release builds involved. The referenced assemblies (and their dependencies) will be placed there.
   • The Microsoft.JavaScript.NodeApi.Generator package reference enables automatic generation of TS type-definitions for the referenced assemblies.

   Build the project to restore the packages, place assemblies in the bin directory, and generate type definitions:

   dotnet build
   

2. Create a package.json file for the project, if you haven't already. Then add a dependency on the node-api-dotnet npm package to your JavaScript project:

   npm install node-api-dotnet
   

3. Import the node-api-dotnet package in your JavaScript or TypeScript code. The import syntax depends on the module system the current project is using.

   ES modules (TypeScript or JavaScript):

   import dotnet from 'node-api-dotnet';

   CommonJS modules (TypeScript):

   import * as dotnet from 'node-api-dotnet';

   CommonJS modules (JavaScript):

   const dotnet = require('node-api-dotnet');

   To load a specific version of .NET, append the target framework moniker to the module name.

   import dotnet from 'node-api-dotnet/net6.0'

   Currently the supported target frameworks are net472, net6.0, and net8.0.

4. Load one or more .NET packages using the generated .js files:

   require('./bin/Example.Package.js');
   require('./bin/Example.Package.Two.js');

   Or if using ES modules:

   import './bin/Example.Package.js';
   import './bin/Example.Package.Two.js';

   ⚠️ Do not assign the results of these require/import statements. The assemblies are all loaded into the dotnet object (explained in the next step).

   If any of the loaded assemblies depends on other assemblies outside the core framework, they will be automatically loaded from the same directory. Building the .csproj should take care of bin-placing all dependencies together. If some dependencies are are in another location, set up a resolving event handler before loading the target assembly:

   dotnet.addListener('resolving', (name, version) => {
       const filePath = path.join(__dirname, 'bin', name + '.dll');
       if (fs.existsSync(filePath)) dotnet.load(filePath);
   });

5. Namespaces and types from the loaded assemblies are projected onto the top-level dotnet object. When loading multiple .NET assemblies, types from all assemblies are merged into the same namespace hierarchy.

   It is convenient (and more efficient!) to create aliases for namespace-qualified .NET types, to avoid repeating the namespace every time.

   const ExampleStaticClass = dotnet.ExampleNamespace.ExampleStaticClass;
   const ExampleClass = dotnet.ExampleNamespace.ExampleClass;
   ExampleStaticClass.ExampleMethod();
   const exampleObj = new ExampleClass(...args);

   Of course you can access properites, pass arguments to methods, get return values, and so on. Most types get automatically marshalled between JavaScript and .NET as you'd expect. For details, see the type projections reference.

   You should notice your IDE offers documentation-comments and member completion from the type definitions, and if writing TypeScript code the TypeScript compiler will check against the type definitions.

   .NET system assemblies can also be loaded and used. For example, import System.Runtime.js to get the core types, System.Console.js to get console APIs, etc. Type definitions for those two assembiles are generated by default; to generate typedefs for additional system assemblies, add items to the NodeApiSystemReferenceAssembly MSBuild item-list in the project.

   ⚠️ Generic types and methods are not yet supported very well -- with the exception of generic collections which work great.