Passing vector to C++ from VB.NET

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Hi!

I have a dll written in C++. It has an exported method which takes a vector of strings (std::vector<std::string xmlns:std="#unknown">) as input parameter. I want to call this method from VB.NET code. I'm new to VB.NET, so I might have missed some basics related to the data types.

I tried using List(Of String), but I got an exception saying it is not possible to marshal generic data types.

Which data type(s) can I use for the purpose mentioned above?

Posted 3-Feb-11 7:20am

NeerajMD

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Solution 1

I'm not positive, but I don't think you can do this directly. Instead you will need to write another C or C++ DLL that accepts the list of strings from VB.NET and this DLL will then build the std::vector with all the strings and then call your original DLL. That's the best that I can think of. :)

Posted 3-Feb-11 8:46am

Chris Meech

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-03T15:34:00

This is quite possible, but needs some careful work. One obvious solution is this: on C++ side, export a different function which should wrap you original C++ function. This function should accept a different type of parameter: an array (not a vector) of LPSTR or LPWSTR strings. These types you can marshal from .NET strings using standard MarshalAs attributes. New exported C++ function would use strings of this type to initialize each instance of std::string and a vector of those strings. Another way could be writing custom marshaller.

—SA