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Asked: 2026-05-28T15:43:34+00:00

I have an API which is comprised of a header (.h) and the library

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I have an API which is comprised of a header (.h) and the library (.a) files.

I’ve never touched C and i need to access this API from C# and interact with it’s functions.

Most questions regarding this topic say i need to do something like [DllImport("insert_the_dll_name_here")] this to invoke the DLL methods. But i only have the .h and .a files.

What should i do?

Should i compile these files into the DLL and then use pInvoke? If so, How?

Or should i write a wrapper class? If so how?

Any help is appreciated.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    If your .a files contain Windows-format object files, then you can extract the archive (use the cygwin ar tool for that) and link those into a C++/CLI project. C++/CLI can use your header files, call C functions directly, and create .NET classes which C# can use just as easily as any Microsoft-provided library class.

    If your .a files contain Linux-format object files, you’ll need to go back to whoever provided them and ask the code to be recompiled for Windows.

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