Feature detection when P/Invoking in C# and .NET

Question

i'm trying to find a good way to detect if a feature exists before P/Invoking. For example calling the native StrCmpLogicalW function:

[SuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurity]
internal static class SafeNativeMethods
{
   [DllImport("shlwapi.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
   public static extern int StrCmpLogicalW(string psz1, string psz2);
}

will crash on some systems that do not have this feature.

i don't want to perform version checking, as that is bad practice, and can sometimes just be wrong (for example when functionality is back-ported, or when the functionality can be uninstalled).

The correct way, is to check for the presence of the export from shlwapi.dll:

private static _StrCmpLogicalW: function(String psz1, String psz2): Integer;
private Boolean _StrCmpLogicalWInitialized;

public int StrCmpLogicalW(String psz1, psz2)
{
    if (!_StrCmpLogialInitialized)
    {
        _StrCmpLogicalW = GetProcedure("shlwapi.dll", "StrCmpLogicalW");
        _StrCmpLogicalWInitialized = true;
    }

    if (_StrCmpLogicalW)
       return _StrCmpLogicalW(psz1, psz2)
    else
       return String.Compare(psz1, psz2, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase);
}

The problem, of course, is that C# doesn't support function pointers, i.e.:

_StrCmpLogicalW = GetProcedure("shlwapi.dll", "StrCmpLogicalW");

cannot be done.

So i'm trying to find alternative syntax to perform the same logic in .NET. i have the following pseudo-code so far, but i'm getting stymied:

[SuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurity]
internal static class SafeNativeMethods
{
   private Boolean IsSupported = false;
   private Boolean IsInitialized = false;

   [DllImport("shlwapi.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, Export="StrCmpLogicalW", CaseSensitivie=false, SetsLastError=true, IsNative=false, SupportsPeanutMandMs=true)]
   private static extern int UnsafeStrCmpLogicalW(string psz1, string psz2);

   public int StrCmpLogicalW(string s1, string s2)
   {
       if (!IsInitialized) 
       {
          //todo: figure out how to loadLibrary in .net
          //todo: figure out how to getProcedureAddress in .net
          IsSupported = (result from getProcedureAddress is not null);
          IsInitialized = true;
       }

       if (IsSupported) 
          return UnsafeStrCmpLogicalW(s1, s2);
       else
          return String.Compare(s1, s2, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase);
   }
}

and i need some help.

---

Another example of some exports that i want to detect presence of would be:

• dwmapi.dll::DwmIsCompositionEnabled
• dwmapi.dll::DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea
• dwmapi.dll::DwmGetColorizationColor
• dwmapi.dll::DwmGetColorizationParameters (undocumented¹, not yet exported by name, ordinal 127)
• dwmapi.dll::127 (undocumented¹, DwmGetColorizationParameters)

¹ as of Windows 7 SP1

There must already be a design pattern in .NET for checking the presence of OS features. Can anyone point me to an example of the preferred way in .NET to perform feature detection?

Answer 1

You could P/Invoke to LoadLibraryW to load shlwapi.dll and then P/Invoke to GetProcAddressW to find "StrCmpLogicalW". If NULL is returned, then it's not there.

You don't need the actual returned value from GetProcAddressW - as long as it's not NULL, you know you can use the P/Invoke declaration of your choice.

Note that GetProcAddressW also supports functions exported by ordinal value.

EDIT: If you want to follow some kind of pattern, then this might work:

First define a helper class NativeMethodResolver that tells you if a method exists in a library:

public static class NativeMethodResolver
{
    public static bool MethodExists(string libraryName, string methodName)
    {
        var libraryPtr = LoadLibrary(libraryName);
        var procPtr = GetProcAddress(libraryPtr, methodName);

        return libraryPtr != UIntPtr.Zero && procPtr != UIntPtr.Zero;
    }

    [DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
    private static extern UIntPtr LoadLibrary(string lpFileName);

    [DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Ansi)]
    private static extern UIntPtr GetProcAddress(UIntPtr hModule, string lpProcName);
}

The above helper class can be consumed by derived classes of SafeNativeMethod that aids in boiler plating some common stuff:

public abstract class SafeNativeMethod
{
    private readonly string libraryName;
    private readonly string methodName;
    private bool resolved;
    private bool exists;

    protected SafeNativeMethod(string libraryName, string methodName)
    {
        this.libraryName = libraryName;
        this.methodName = methodName;
    }

    protected bool CanInvoke
    {
        get
        {
            if (!this.resolved)
            {
                this.exists = Resolve();
                this.resolved = true;
            }

            return this.exists; 
        }            
    }

    private bool Resolve()
    {
        return NativeMethodResolver.MethodExists(this.libraryName, this.methodName);
    }
}

A derived class that defines its own Invoke method can then call the base CanInvoke to see if a default value (or default implementation) should be returned in place of the return value of the sought native method. From your question, I'll take shlwapi.dll/StrCmpLogicalW and dwmapi.dll/DwmIsCompositionEnabled as example implementations for SafeNativeMethod:

public sealed class SafeStrCmpLogical : SafeNativeMethod
{
    public SafeStrCmpLogical()
        : base("shlwapi.dll", "StrCmpLogicalW")
    {           
    }

    public int Invoke(string psz1, string psz2)
    {
        return CanInvoke ? StrCmpLogicalW(psz1, psz2) : 0;
    }

    [DllImport("shlwapi.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
    private static extern int StrCmpLogicalW(string psz1, string psz2);
}

public sealed class SafeDwmIsCompositionEnabled : SafeNativeMethod
{
    public SafeDwmIsCompositionEnabled()
        : base("dwmapi.dll", "DwmIsCompositionEnabled")
    {
    }

    public bool Invoke()
    {
        return CanInvoke ? DwmIsCompositionEnabled() : false;
    }

    [DllImport("dwmapi.dll", SetLastError = true, PreserveSig = false)]
    private static extern bool DwmIsCompositionEnabled();
}

Those two can then be used like this:

static void Main()
{
    var StrCmpLogical = new SafeStrCmpLogical();
    var relation = StrCmpLogical.Invoke("first", "second");

    var DwmIsCompositionEnabled = new SafeDwmIsCompositionEnabled();
    var enabled = DwmIsCompositionEnabled.Invoke();
}