Question

How can I translate this C++ code snippet into C# ?

void fm_getAABB(..., const float *points, ...)
{    
   // ...
   const unsigned char *source = (const unsigned char *) points;
   //...    
   const float *p = (const float *) source;
   //...
}

I’ve already tried to use a C++ to C# converter, but it doesn’t seem able to translate it either.

EDIT:
Here’s the whole function:

void fm_getAABB(unsigned int vcount, const float *points, unsigned int pstride,
    float *bmin, float *bmax)
{
    const unsigned char *source = (const unsigned char *) points;

    bmin[0] = points[0];
    bmin[1] = points[1];
    bmin[2] = points[2];

    bmax[0] = points[0];
    bmax[1] = points[1];
    bmax[2] = points[2];

    for (unsigned int i = 1; i < vcount; i++)
    {
        source+=pstride;
        const float *p = (const float *) source;

        if ( p[0] < bmin[0] ) bmin[0] = p[0];
        if ( p[1] < bmin[1] ) bmin[1] = p[1];
        if ( p[2] < bmin[2] ) bmin[2] = p[2];

        if ( p[0] > bmax[0] ) bmax[0] = p[0];
        if ( p[1] > bmax[1] ) bmax[1] = p[1];
        if ( p[2] > bmax[2] ) bmax[2] = p[2];
    }
}

Answer 1

One option is to translate this as-is, by using the unsafe mode of C#. C# is perfectly capable of running this code with small modifications. You need to remove the const modifier for example.

If you manage to produce a managed-only version that would be preferable of course. But it is not entirely clear that that is even possible: Your function is performing certain pointer manipulations which might lead to unaligned access. Managed arrays cannot pe accessed in an unaligned way using managed-only features.