4 ms·

C# is my goto for Windows, for sure. Is the native interop good in Linux as well? I've never even considered anything like that, would probably gravitate to C++

C# is my goto for Windows, for sure. Is the native interop good in Linux as well? I've never even considered anything like that, would probably gravitate to C++ since that's what I'm familiar with but would seriously consider Go or Java in non-Windows situations.

josteink 6y ago
How do you think they built the Linux-version of the .NET standard library? ;)
- adolph 6y ago
  Lots of wine?
scott00 6y ago
Interop on Linux works well.
meibo 6y ago
C# on Linux, as of the past 2 or 3 years, has been consistently improving with great tooling, good interop, is open source(MIT) and has the ability to package "native" versions of your app that contain the runtime at negligible space costs for distribution or deployment. Give .NET 5 on Linux a try, you'll be surprised! For me, the work this team has been doing is the example of the positive "change" Microsoft has brought to the open source space. A stellar language with great infrastructure.
pjc50 6y ago
The native interop is the same. That is, if your DLL and .so have the same function signatures, you can use the same interop code unmodified between Linux and Windows. This is really convenient. (But watch out for bitness)
keithnz 6y ago
Also want to add with Jetbrains Rider, you can get a consistent IDE experience across multiple platforms as well. As much as I like vscode, Rider is just fantastic.
Salgat 6y ago
Azure has the majority of its VMs on Linux now. C# is almost certainly more popular on Linux than Windows for anything developed in the last couple years. We are in the process of migrating all our services over to kubernetes, it's quite nice.
blake1 6y ago
I’ve actually been using dotnet 5 on Linux recently. It’s been really successful, and to your question; I put performance critical bits in a .so with which I can use pinvoke. Speaks to the power of C, really because there’s been amazingly, no issues with ABI or strict layout or anything.
binarynate 6y ago
Yes, native interop works the same across all platforms (Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, iOS). You can just place a dynamic library with C linkage (.so, .dylib, or .dll file) into your app's folder, and then you can call the native functions as external functions in C#. For example, if your library exports the following C function: void printMessage(char *message) { printf("Message from C#: %s", message) } You can call it from C# like this: MyLibrary.printMessage("Hello from C#!"); public static class MyLibrary { [DllImport("MyLibraryName")] public static extern void printMessage(string message); } C# takes care of marshalling data types, and an instance of a native object can be passed as an IntPtr. I'm currently developing web services for a new WebRTC-related product using .NET 5 on Ubuntu, and it's working well. One of the services utilizes a native C++ library and another utilizes a native Go-based library using the same approach. Java and Go are both good options, too.
- zwieback 6y ago
  Thanks, I'll give it a try. I've done a lot of interop in Windows so it'll be good to leverage to Linux.
  - merb 6y ago
    it's a little bit harder when your linux library is not inside LD_LIBRARY_PATH or the windows one is not inside a path. but there are tricks to override the loading behavior, it's just a little bit tricky since you need a loading context, which can load other c# dll's without having a reference to them. it's basically like that: AssemblyLoadContext loads the managed assembly (like YourPackage.NativeApi which contains the DllImport) and the AssemblyLoadContext that loads via LoadUnmanagedDll all paths to the DllImports. you also need a Shared Library for the calling package and the dll import package so that you can do (Type)Activator.CreateInstance(LoadContext.LoadFromAssemblyName(YourDllImportAssemblyName))

josteink 6y ago

How do you think they built the Linux-version of the .NET standard library? ;)

adolph 6y ago
Lots of wine?

scott00 6y ago

Interop on Linux works well.

meibo 6y ago

C# on Linux, as of the past 2 or 3 years, has been consistently improving with great tooling, good interop, is open source(MIT) and has the ability to package "native" versions of your app that contain the runtime at negligible space costs for distribution or deployment. Give .NET 5 on Linux a try, you'll be surprised! For me, the work this team has been doing is the example of the positive "change" Microsoft has brought to the open source space. A stellar language with great infrastructure.

pjc50 6y ago

The native interop is the same. That is, if your DLL and .so have the same function signatures, you can use the same interop code unmodified between Linux and Windows. This is really convenient. (But watch out for bitness)

keithnz 6y ago

Also want to add with Jetbrains Rider, you can get a consistent IDE experience across multiple platforms as well. As much as I like vscode, Rider is just fantastic.

Salgat 6y ago

Azure has the majority of its VMs on Linux now. C# is almost certainly more popular on Linux than Windows for anything developed in the last couple years. We are in the process of migrating all our services over to kubernetes, it's quite nice.

blake1 6y ago

I’ve actually been using dotnet 5 on Linux recently. It’s been really successful, and to your question; I put performance critical bits in a .so with which I can use pinvoke. Speaks to the power of C, really because there’s been amazingly, no issues with ABI or strict layout or anything.

binarynate 6y ago

Yes, native interop works the same across all platforms (Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, iOS). You can just place a dynamic library with C linkage (.so, .dylib, or .dll file) into your app's folder, and then you can call the native functions as external functions in C#. For example, if your library exports the following C function: void printMessage(char *message) { printf("Message from C#: %s", message) } You can call it from C# like this: MyLibrary.printMessage("Hello from C#!"); public static class MyLibrary { [DllImport("MyLibraryName")] public static extern void printMessage(string message); } C# takes care of marshalling data types, and an instance of a native object can be passed as an IntPtr. I'm currently developing web services for a new WebRTC-related product using .NET 5 on Ubuntu, and it's working well. One of the services utilizes a native C++ library and another utilizes a native Go-based library using the same approach. Java and Go are both good options, too.

zwieback 6y ago
Thanks, I'll give it a try. I've done a lot of interop in Windows so it'll be good to leverage to Linux.
- merb 6y ago
  it's a little bit harder when your linux library is not inside LD_LIBRARY_PATH or the windows one is not inside a path. but there are tricks to override the loading behavior, it's just a little bit tricky since you need a loading context, which can load other c# dll's without having a reference to them. it's basically like that: AssemblyLoadContext loads the managed assembly (like YourPackage.NativeApi which contains the DllImport) and the AssemblyLoadContext that loads via LoadUnmanagedDll all paths to the DllImports. you also need a Shared Library for the calling package and the dll import package so that you can do (Type)Activator.CreateInstance(LoadContext.LoadFromAssemblyName(YourDllImportAssemblyName))