C# performance - Using unsafe pointers instead of IntPtr and Marshal

c# c pinvoke marshalling unsafe
kol picture kol · Jul 9, 2013 · Viewed 31.8k times · Source

Question

I'm porting a C application into C#. The C app calls lots of functions from a 3rd-party DLL, so I wrote P/Invoke wrappers for these functions in C#. Some of these C functions allocate data which I have to use in the C# app, so I used IntPtr's, Marshal.PtrToStructure and Marshal.Copy to copy the native data (arrays and structures) into managed variables.

Unfortunately, the C# app proved to be much slower than the C version. A quick performance analysis showed that the above mentioned marshaling-based data copying is the bottleneck. I'm considering to speed up the C# code by rewriting it to use pointers instead. Since I don't have experience with unsafe code and pointers in C#, I need expert opinion regarding the following questions:

  1. What are the drawbacks of using unsafe code and pointers instead of IntPtr and Marshaling? For example, is it more unsafe (pun intended) in any way? People seem to prefer marshaling, but I don't know why.
  2. Is using pointers for P/Invoking really faster than using marshaling? How much speedup can be expected approximately? I couldn't find any benchmark tests for this.

Example code

To make the situation more clear, I hacked together a small example code (the real code is much more complex). I hope this example shows what I mean when I'm talking about "unsafe code and pointers" vs. "IntPtr and Marshal".

C library (DLL)

MyLib.h

#ifndef _MY_LIB_H_
#define _MY_LIB_H_

struct MyData 
{
  int length;
  unsigned char* bytes;
};

__declspec(dllexport) void CreateMyData(struct MyData** myData, int length);
__declspec(dllexport) void DestroyMyData(struct MyData* myData);

#endif // _MY_LIB_H_

MyLib.c

#include <stdlib.h>
#include "MyLib.h"

void CreateMyData(struct MyData** myData, int length)
{
  int i;

  *myData = (struct MyData*)malloc(sizeof(struct MyData));
  if (*myData != NULL)
  {
    (*myData)->length = length;
    (*myData)->bytes = (unsigned char*)malloc(length * sizeof(char));
    if ((*myData)->bytes != NULL)
      for (i = 0; i < length; ++i)
        (*myData)->bytes[i] = (unsigned char)(i % 256);
  }
}

void DestroyMyData(struct MyData* myData)
{
  if (myData != NULL)
  {
    if (myData->bytes != NULL)
      free(myData->bytes);
    free(myData);
  }
}

C application

Main.c

#include <stdio.h>
#include "MyLib.h"

void main()
{
  struct MyData* myData = NULL;
  int length = 100 * 1024 * 1024;

  printf("=== C++ test ===\n");
  CreateMyData(&myData, length);
  if (myData != NULL)
  {
    printf("Length: %d\n", myData->length);
    if (myData->bytes != NULL)
      printf("First: %d, last: %d\n", myData->bytes[0], myData->bytes[myData->length - 1]);
    else
      printf("myData->bytes is NULL");
  }
  else
    printf("myData is NULL\n");
  DestroyMyData(myData);
  getchar();
}

C# application, which uses IntPtr and Marshal

Program.cs

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

public static class Program
{
  [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
  private struct MyData
  {
    public int Length;
    public IntPtr Bytes;
  }

  [DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
  private static extern void CreateMyData(out IntPtr myData, int length);

  [DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
  private static extern void DestroyMyData(IntPtr myData);

  public static void Main()
  {
    Console.WriteLine("=== C# test, using IntPtr and Marshal ===");
    int length = 100 * 1024 * 1024;
    IntPtr myData1;
    CreateMyData(out myData1, length);
    if (myData1 != IntPtr.Zero)
    {
      MyData myData2 = (MyData)Marshal.PtrToStructure(myData1, typeof(MyData));
      Console.WriteLine("Length: {0}", myData2.Length);
      if (myData2.Bytes != IntPtr.Zero)
      {
        byte[] bytes = new byte[myData2.Length];
        Marshal.Copy(myData2.Bytes, bytes, 0, myData2.Length);
        Console.WriteLine("First: {0}, last: {1}", bytes[0], bytes[myData2.Length - 1]);
      }
      else
        Console.WriteLine("myData.Bytes is IntPtr.Zero");
    }
    else
      Console.WriteLine("myData is IntPtr.Zero");
    DestroyMyData(myData1);
    Console.ReadKey(true);
  }
}

C# application, which uses unsafe code and pointers

Program.cs

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

public static class Program
{
  [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
  private unsafe struct MyData
  {
    public int Length;
    public byte* Bytes;
  }

  [DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
  private unsafe static extern void CreateMyData(out MyData* myData, int length);

  [DllImport("MyLib.dll")]
  private unsafe static extern void DestroyMyData(MyData* myData);

  public unsafe static void Main()
  {
    Console.WriteLine("=== C# test, using unsafe code ===");
    int length = 100 * 1024 * 1024;
    MyData* myData;
    CreateMyData(out myData, length);
    if (myData != null)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("Length: {0}", myData->Length);
      if (myData->Bytes != null)
        Console.WriteLine("First: {0}, last: {1}", myData->Bytes[0], myData->Bytes[myData->Length - 1]);
      else
        Console.WriteLine("myData.Bytes is null");
    }
    else
      Console.WriteLine("myData is null");
    DestroyMyData(myData);
    Console.ReadKey(true);
  }
}

Answer

Xan-Kun Clark-Davis picture Xan-Kun Clark-Davis · Apr 24, 2015

It's a little old thread, but I recently made excessive performance tests with marshaling in C#. I need to unmarshal lots of data from a serial port over many days. It was important to me to have no memory leaks (because the smallest leak will get significant after a couple of million calls) and I also made a lot of statistical performance (time used) tests with very big structs (>10kb) just for the sake of it (an no, you should never have a 10kb struct :-) )

I tested the following three unmarshalling strategies (I also tested the marshalling). In nearly all cases the first one (MarshalMatters) outperformed the other two. Marshal.Copy was always slowest by far, the other two were mostly very close together in the race.

Using unsafe code can pose a significant security risk.

First:

public class MarshalMatters
{
    public static T ReadUsingMarshalUnsafe<T>(byte[] data) where T : struct
    {
        unsafe
        {
            fixed (byte* p = &data[0])
            {
                return (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(new IntPtr(p), typeof(T));
            }
        }
    }

    public unsafe static byte[] WriteUsingMarshalUnsafe<selectedT>(selectedT structure) where selectedT : struct
    {
        byte[] byteArray = new byte[Marshal.SizeOf(structure)];
        fixed (byte* byteArrayPtr = byteArray)
        {
            Marshal.StructureToPtr(structure, (IntPtr)byteArrayPtr, true);
        }
        return byteArray;
    }
}

Second:

public class Adam_Robinson
{

    private static T BytesToStruct<T>(byte[] rawData) where T : struct
    {
        T result = default(T);
        GCHandle handle = GCHandle.Alloc(rawData, GCHandleType.Pinned);
        try
        {
            IntPtr rawDataPtr = handle.AddrOfPinnedObject();
            result = (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(rawDataPtr, typeof(T));
        }
        finally
        {
            handle.Free();
        }
        return result;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// no Copy. no unsafe. Gets a GCHandle to the memory via Alloc
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="selectedT"></typeparam>
    /// <param name="structure"></param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static byte[] StructToBytes<T>(T structure) where T : struct
    {
        int size = Marshal.SizeOf(structure);
        byte[] rawData = new byte[size];
        GCHandle handle = GCHandle.Alloc(rawData, GCHandleType.Pinned);
        try
        {
            IntPtr rawDataPtr = handle.AddrOfPinnedObject();
            Marshal.StructureToPtr(structure, rawDataPtr, false);
        }
        finally
        {
            handle.Free();
        }
        return rawData;
    }
}

Third:

/// <summary>
/// http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2623761/marshal-ptrtostructure-and-back-again-and-generic-solution-for-endianness-swap
/// </summary>
public class DanB
{
    /// <summary>
    /// uses Marshal.Copy! Not run in unsafe. Uses AllocHGlobal to get new memory and copies.
    /// </summary>
    public static byte[] GetBytes<T>(T structure) where T : struct
    {
        var size = Marshal.SizeOf(structure); //or Marshal.SizeOf<selectedT>(); in .net 4.5.1
        byte[] rawData = new byte[size];
        IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(size);

        Marshal.StructureToPtr(structure, ptr, true);
        Marshal.Copy(ptr, rawData, 0, size);
        Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr);
        return rawData;
    }

    public static T FromBytes<T>(byte[] bytes) where T : struct
    {
        var structure = new T();
        int size = Marshal.SizeOf(structure);  //or Marshal.SizeOf<selectedT>(); in .net 4.5.1
        IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(size);

        Marshal.Copy(bytes, 0, ptr, size);

        structure = (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(ptr, structure.GetType());
        Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr);

        return structure;
    }
}

Related questions

How can I pass a pointer to an array using p/invoke in C#?

Example C API signature: void Func(unsigned char* bytes); In C, when I want to pass a pointer to an array, I can do: unsigned char* bytes = new unsigned char[1000]; Func(bytes); // call How do I translate the above API …

Read More
Calling C DLL from C#

I am trying to call a C DLL from C#, but I'm not having any joy. The documentation for the DLL provides an example function delaration for VB that looks like; Declare Function TransGeogPt Lib "c:\DLLS\GDAit.dll" (ByVal …

Read More
Easiest way to generate P/Invoke code?

I am an experienced .Net programer, but have not compiled a C/C++ program in my life. Now I have this C-dll, headers and documentation (3rd party, not from Win API), from which I need to call about ten methods. …

Read More