ClangSharp provides Clang bindings written in C#. It is self-hosted and auto-generates itself by parsing the Clang C header files using ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator.
| Job | Debug Status | Release Status |
|---|---|---|
| Windows x86 | ||
| Windows x64 | ||
| Ubuntu 18.04 x64 | ||
| MacOS x64 |
A nuget package for the project is provided here: https://www.nuget.org/packages/clangsharp. A .NET tool for the P/Invoke generator project is provided here: https://www.nuget.org/packages/ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator
A convenience package which provides the native libClang library for several platforms is provided here: https://www.nuget.org/packages/libclang A helper package which exposes many Clang APIs missing from libClang is provided here: https://www.nuget.org/packages/libClangSharp
NOTE: These may be out of date as compared to the latest sources. New versions are published as appropriate and a nightly feed is not currently available.
- Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct
- License
- Features
- Building Managed
- Building Native
- Generating Bindings
- Spotlight
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.
Copyright (c) Microsoft and Contributors. All rights reserved. Licensed under the University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License. See LICENSE.txt in the project root for license information.
- Auto-generated using Clang C headers files, and supports all functionality exposed by them ~ which means you can build tooling around C/C++
- Exposes the raw unsafe API for performance
- Exposes a slightly higher abstraction that is type safe (CXIndex and CXTranslationUnit are different types, despite being pointers internally)
- Exposes an again slightly higher abstraction that tries to mirror the Clang C++ Type Hierarchy where possible
- Nearly identical to the Clang C APIs, e.g.
clang_getDiagnosticSpellingin C, vs.clang.getDiagnosticSpelling(notice the . in the C# API)
ClangSharp requires the .NET 5 SDK and can be built simply with dotnet build -c Release.
You can reproduce what the CI environment does by running ./scripts/cibuild.cmd on Windows or ./scripts.cibuild.sh on Unix.
This will download the required .NET SDK locally and use that to build the repo; it will also run through all available actions in the appropriate order.
There are also several build scripts in the repository root. On Windows these scripts end with .cmd and expect arguments with a - prefix. On Unix these scripts end with .sh and expect arguments with a -- prefix.
By default, each script performs only the action specified in its name (i.e. restore only restores, build only builds, test only tests, and pack only packs). You can specify additional actions to be run by passing that name as an argument to the script (e.g. build.cmd -restore will perform a package restore and build; test.cmd -pack will run tests and package artifacts).
Certain actions are dependent on a previous action having been run at least once. build depends on restore, test depends on build, and pack depends on build. This means the recommended first time action is build -restore.
You can see any additional options that are available by passing -help on Windows or --help on Unix to the available build scripts.
ClangSharp provides a helper library, libClangSharp, that exposes additional functionality that is not available in libClang.
Building this requires CMake 3.13 or later as well as a version of MSVC or Clang that supports C++ 17.
To succesfully build libClangSharp you must first build Clang (https://clang.llvm.org/get_started.html). The process done on Windows is roughly:
git clone https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project
cd llvm-project
mkdir artifacts/bin
cd artifacts/bin
cmake -DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS=clang -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../install -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 -Thost=x64 ../../llvmYou can then open LLVM.sln in Visual Studio, change the configuration to Release and build the install project.
Afterwards, you can then build libClangSharp where the process followed is roughly:
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/clangsharp
mkdir artifacts/bin/native
cd artifacts/bin/native
cmake -DPATH_TO_LLVM=../../../../llvm-project/artifacts/install/ -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 -Thost=x64 ../../..You can then open libClangSharp.sln in Visual Studio, change the configuration to Release and build the ALL_BUILD project.
This program will take a given set of C or C++ header files and generate C# bindings from them. It is still a work-in-progress and not every declaration can have bindings generated today (contributions are welcome).
The simplest and recommended setup is to install the generator as a .NET tool and then use response files:
dotnet tool install --global ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator --version 11.0.0-beta2
ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator @generate.rsp
A response file allows you to specify and checkin the command line arguments in a text file, with one argument per line. For example: https://github.com/microsoft/ClangSharp/blob/main/sources/ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator/Properties/GenerateClang.rsp
At a minimum, the command line expects one or more input files (-f), an output namespace (-n), and an output location (-o). A typical response file may also specify explicit files to traverse, configuration options, name remappings, and other fixups.
The full set of available switches:
ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator:
ClangSharp P/Invoke Binding Generator
Usage:
ClangSharpPInvokeGenerator [options]
Options:
-a, --additional <<arg>> An argument to pass to Clang when parsing the input files.
[default: System.String[]]
-c, --config <<arg>> Aconfiguration option that controls how the bindings are
generated. Specify 'help' to see the available options.
[default: System.String[]]
-D, --define-macro <<macro>=<value>> Define <macro> to <value> (or 1 if <value> omitted).
[default: System.String[]]
-e, --exclude <<name>> Adeclaration name to exclude from binding generation.
[default: System.String[]]
-f, --file <<file>> Afile to parse and generate bindings for. [default:
System.String[]]
-F, --file-directory <<directory>> The base path for files to parse. [default: ]
-h, --headerFile <<file>> Afile which contains the header to prefix every generated
file with. [default: ]
-I, --include-directory <<arg>> Add directory to include search path. [default:
System.String[]]
-x, --language <<arg>> Treat subsequent input files as having type <language>.
[default: c++]
-l, --libraryPath <<dllName>> The string to use in the DllImport attribute used when
generating bindings. [default: ]
-m, --methodClassName <<className>> The name of the static class that will contain the generated
method bindings. [default: Methods]
-n, --namespace <<namespace>> The namespace in which to place the generated bindings.
[default: ]
-o, --output <<file>> The output location to write the generated bindings to.
[default: ]
-p, --prefixStrip <<prefix>> The prefix to strip from the generated method bindings.
[default: ]
-r, --remap <<name>=<value>> Adeclaration name to be remapped to another name during
binding generation. [default: System.String[]]
-std <<arg>> Language standard to compile for. [default: c++17]
-to, --test-output <<file>> The output location to write the generated tests to.
[default: ]
-t, --traverse <<name>> Afile name included either directly or indirectly by -f that
should be traversed during binding generation. [default:
System.String[]]
-wa, --with-attribute <<remapped-name>=<value>> An attribute to be added to the given remapped declaration
name during binding generation. [default: System.String[]]
-wcc, --with-callconv <<remapped-name>=<value>> Acalling convention to be used for the given declaration
during binding generation. [default: System.String[]]
-wlb, --with-librarypath <<remapped-name>=<value>> Alibrary path to be used for the given declaration during
binding generation. [default: System.String[]]
-wsle, --with-setlasterror <<remapped-name>=<value>> Add the SetLastError=true modifier to a given DllImport or
UnmanagedFunctionPointer. [default: System.String[]]
-wt, --with-type <<remapped-name>=<value>> Atype to be used for the given enum declaration during
binding generation. [default: System.String[]]
-wu, --with-using <<remapped-name>=<value>> Ausing directive to be included for the given remapped
declaration name during binding generation. [default:
System.String[]]
-om, --output-mode <CSharp|Xml> The mode describing how the information collected from the
headers are presented in the resultant bindings. [default:
CSharp]
--version Show version information
-?, -h, --help Show help and usage information
The available configuration options (visible with -c help) are:
-c, --config <<arg>> A configuration option that controls how the bindings are generated. Specify 'help' to see the available options.
Options:
?, h, help Show help and usage information for -c, --config
compatible-codegen Bindings should be generated with .NET Standard 2.0 compatibility. Setting
this disables preview code generation.
latest-codegen Bindings should be generated for the latest stable version of .NET/C#. This
is currently .NET 5/C# 9.
preview-codegen Bindings should be generated for the latest preview version of .NET/C#.
This is currently .NET 6/C# 10.
single-file Bindings should be generated to a single output file. This is the default.
multi-file Bindings should be generated so there is approximately one type per file.
unix-types Bindings should be generated assuming Unix defaults. This is the default on
Unix platforms.
windows-types Bindings should be generated assuming Windows defaults. This is the default
on Windows platforms.
exclude-anonymous-field-helpers The helper ref properties generated for fields in nested anonymous structs
and unions should not be generated.
exclude-com-proxies Types recognized as COM proxies should not have bindings generated. Thes
are currently function declarations ending with _UserFree, _UserMarshal,
_UserSize, _UserUnmarshal, _Proxy, or _Stub.
exclude-default-remappings Default remappings for well known types should not be added. This currently
includes intptr_t, ptrdiff_t, size_t, and uintptr_t
exclude-empty-records Bindings for records that contain no members should not be generated. These
are commonly encountered for opaque handle like types such as HWND.
exclude-enum-operators Bindings for operators over enum types should not be generated. These are
largely unnecessary in C# as the operators are available by default.
exclude-fnptr-codegen Generated bindings for latest or preview codegen should not use function
pointers.
exclude-funcs-with-body Bindings for functions with bodies should not be generated.
preview-codegen-nint Generated bindings for latest or preview codegen should not use nint or
nuint.
exclude-using-statics-for-enums Enum usages should be fully qualified and should not include a
corresponding 'using static EnumName;'
explicit-vtbls VTBLs should have an explicit type generated with named fields per entry.
implicit-vtbls VTBLs should be implicit to reduce metadata bloat. This is the current
default
generate-tests-nunit Basic tests validating size, blittability, and associated metadata should
be generated for NUnit.
generate-tests-xunit Basic tests validating size, blittability, and associated metadata should
be generated for XUnit.
generate-aggressive-inlining [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.AggressiveInlining)] should be added to
generated helper functions.
generate-cpp-attributes [CppAttributeList("")] should be generated to document the encountered C++
attributes.
generate-macro-bindings Bindings for macro-definitions should be generated. This currently only
works with value like macros and not function-like ones.
generate-native-inheritance-attribute [NativeInheritance("")] attribute should be generated to document the
encountered C++ base type.
generate-vtbl-index-attribute [VtblIndex(#)] attribute should be generated to document the underlying
VTBL index for a helper method.
log-exclusions Alist of excluded declaration types should be generated. This will also log
if the exclusion was due to an exact or partial match.
log-potential-typedef-remappings Alist of potential typedef remappings should be generated. This can help
identify missing remappings.
log-visited-files Alist of the visited files should be generated. This can help identify
traversal issues.
The P/Invoke Generator is currently used by several projects:
- microsoft/clangsharp - ClangSharp is self-hosting
- microsoft/llvmsharp - Bindings over libLLVM
- microsoft/win32metadata - Bindings over the Windows SDK meant for downstream use by projects such as CsWin32, RsWin32, etc
- terrafx/terrafx.interop.windows - Bindings for D3D10, D3D11, D3D12, D2D1, DWrite, WIC, User32, and more in a single NuGet
- terrafx/terrafx.interop.vulkan - Bindings for Vulkan
- terrafx/terrafx.interop.xlib - Bindings for Xlib