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Asked: 2026-05-22T00:44:52+00:00

Few days ago I asked what this attribute means: [System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport(KERNEL32.DLL, EntryPoint=RtlZeroMemory)] public unsafe static

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Few days ago I asked what this attribute means:

 [System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("KERNEL32.DLL", EntryPoint="RtlZeroMemory")]  public unsafe static extern bool ZeroMemory(byte* destination, int length);

I have learned that attributes are metadata but what I do not understand is – is this needed in this case? I thought metada are just that, metadata that can be ommited. Also the code seems to be running fine when I remove the attibute.
I would like to understand.

PS: Hans Passant mentioned its covered by any book about .NET Csharp..it is not, the largely used one VS 2010 from John Sharp does not cover it.

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  1. Editorial Team

    No, this attribute is absolutely required. It informs the CLR that what you’ve defined actually uses platform invokation services (or, P/Invoke) to call a function defined in unmanaged code.

    Specifically, the RtlZeroMemory function, defined in the library kernel32.dll.

    Without it, the compiler wouldn’t know which function it was bound to, and the CLR wouldn’t know which function to call at run-time.

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