Question

I need to have a function in C++/CLI which do the link between a C++ native std::list<std::string> and a string[] in C# to do something like that with my WinForm :

    ComboBox1.Items.AddRange(installs);

installs is the string[].

Do you have an idea? How can I do this? C++/CLI programming is hard without Intellisense. 🙁

What do you think about this?

Native C++ .cpp

std::list<std::string>* Get_Liste_place_de_marche(void)
{
    list<string>* liste_place_de_marche = new list<string>;
    liste_place_de_marche->push_back("CAC 40");
    liste_place_de_marche->push_back("DAX");
    return liste_place_de_marche;
}

And I need to code this function using the last code to the top :

C++/CLI .cpp called in my Winform with C#

array<System::String^>^ NativeMethod::Get_Liste_place_de_marche(void)
{
    typedef std::list<std::string>::const_iterator iter_t;

    std::list<std::string> const* list = new std::list<std::string>;
    list = ::Get_Liste_place_de_marche();

    array<System::String^>^ ret = gcnew array<System::String^>(list->size());
    int j = 0;

    for (iter_t i = list->begin(); i != list->end(); ++i)
        ret[j++] = gcnew System::String(i->c_str());

    return ret;
}

It should work? Because I have many errors…

Answer 1

The following should do the job:

array<System::String^>^ ArrayFromList(std::list<std::string> const& list) {
    typedef std::list<std::string>::const_iterator iter_t;

    array<System::String^>^ ret = gcnew array<System::String^>(list.size());
    int j = 0;

    for (iter_t i = list.begin(); i != list.end(); ++i)
        ret[j++] = gcnew System::String(i->c_str());

    return ret;
}

I would try to keep this more general, though. For instance, it’s customary in C++ to work on iterator ranges instead of containers. Furthermore, the above only works on (zero-terminated) strings. Very similar code will be needed to convert other object collections. It might make sense to abstract the object conversion away.