How to use C-Library in C#

Question

i´ve downloaded a BACnet-Stack from http://sourceforge.net/projects/bacnet/ but it is written in c and i want to use it in c#.

I´ve been reading for 4 hours now about how to get it done but i´m not any further. Most answers are to write the code anew in c# but i have no clue of c . I opened a workspace in Code::Blocks to look into the code and compiled a library into a a.-file. But how can i use it?

Greetings,

Stefan

Answer 1

To address alike situation, Microsoft provides attributes, assembly, and marshaling to offer interoperability between managed-unmanaged code(not .net aware/running outside the clr boundaries) and managed-legacy COM.
Investigate the use of dynamics and the (Dynamic language runtime- DLR) which should be more than fine.
code example (using kernel32.dll) as an example of calling unmanaged code from a managed context

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", EntryPoint="MoveFile",
ExactSpelling=false, CharSet=CharSet.Unicode,
SetLastError=true)]
static extern bool MoveFile(string sourceFile, string destinationFile);

//calling the function
static void Main()
{
    MoveFile("sheet.xls", @"c:\sheet.xls");
}

check this pdf also: http://www.nag.com/IndustryArticles/Calling_C_Library_DLLs_from_C_Sharp.pdf

Answer 2

Just as an aside; the BACsharp project has the beginnings/artistic fuel to draw from - you'd have/be best to replace the use Winform timers though with generic ones, but I had spotted a C# NuGet package about a year back; you might want to take a glance at that one too (?).