Getting a runtime¶

To get a Runtime instance, one of the get_* functions has to be called. There are currently the factory functions get_mono(), get_coreclr() and get_netfx(). All of these provide various configuration options that are documented in the Reference. They also provide reasonable defaults and can be called without parameters if the respective runtime is installed globally:

from clr_loader import get_coreclr
runtime = get_coreclr()

After this, the runtime will usually already be initialized. The initialization is delayed for .NET Core to allow adjusting the runtime properties beforehand.

Information on the runtime, its version and parameters can be retrieved using runtime.info() (see Runtime.info()).

Getting a callable function¶

A wrapped assembly can be retrieved from the runtime by calling Runtime.get_assembly() with the path.

The following example class is provided in the repository:

using System.Text;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System;

namespace Example
{
    public class TestClass
    {
        public static int Test(IntPtr arg, int size) {
            var buf = new byte[size];
            Marshal.Copy(arg, buf, 0, size);
            var bufAsString = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(buf);
            var result = bufAsString.Length;
            Console.WriteLine($"Called {nameof(Test)} in {nameof(TestClass)} with {bufAsString}, returning {result}");
            Console.WriteLine($"Binary data: {Convert.ToBase64String(buf)}");

            return result;
        }
    }
}

Assuming it has been compiled to out/example.dll, it can now be loaded using Runtime.get_assembly():

assembly = runtime.get_assembly("path/to/assembly.dll")

The assembly instance can now be used to get a wrapper instance of the Test function in Python. The given parameters are the fully qualified class name and the function name. Alternatively, a single parameter can be provided, and we assume that the last “component” is the function name. These are equivalent:

function = assembly.get_function("Example.TestClass", "Test")
function = assembly.get_function("Example.TestClass.Test")

This function can now be called with a Python binary like this:

result = function(b"testy mctestface")

The IntPtr parameter in C# will now point directly at the binary buffer, the int parameter will contain the size. The given call will thus result in the output:

Called Test in TestClass with testy mctestface, returning 16
Binary data: dGVzdHkgbWN0ZXN0ZmFjZQ==

result will now be 16.