Calling managed .NET DLL from NSIS - this works :-)

[claesabrandt]

SlyW: Sorry for the delay. I honestly don't know why .NET Framework SP1 makes things work, but your findings sound resonable.

[dmccoy]

This may be old news, but I believe I have found a fix for the dependent assemblies problem using the AssemblyResolve event. I hope it will be of use to you.

My managed C++ skills are not the greatest, but please find attached my modified source file.

Thank you for creating the CLR NSIS plug in. It has proven very valuable - we use it often.

Best Regards,

David

[claesabrandt]

David, that looks interesting! That is really something I want to fix in the plugin. I will take a look at your code. I don't think this is old news, at least not for me, because I still had no solution to it. If I understand it right, will it then be possible to place the dependant assemblies anywhere and not necessarily in the same folder hierachy as the calling exe/dll?

[kichik]

What are the requirements for building this plug-in? Can I build it using VC6?

[claesabrandt]

No. It has to be at least Visual Studio 2005 as .NET 2.0 must be supported.

[kichik]

Too bad... Will just have to wait for the day I finally switch to 2008 I guess. But keep 'em coming. It's a useful plug-in.

[claesabrandt]

The free express editions of VS works too, and can be installed alongside with VC6. Anyway, I will most likely implement Davids modification in the CLR.dll, so the dependant assembly problem will be solved for everyone, without having to recompile the source.

[dmccoy]

Hi Claes,

The default assembly resolution mechanism should be called first, so assemblies registered in the GAC should still work. However, if the default assembly resolution fails it will attempt to load the assembly from the directory containing the assembly that was explicitly executed using CallCLR. I suppose it could be modified without a great deal of effort to accept a Java-like class path of directories to search for dependency assemblies.

Again, thank you for creating this plug in. We used it to replace a very clunky XML-driven solution that we used to use for performing install tasks from .NET DLLs.

Best Regards,

David

[timc_]

I notice it has been quite some time since talk of changing the way dependent assemblies are located. Is this no longer likely to happen?

Also, is there any particular reason why the plugin requires the assembly being called to have a .dll extension? I tried making calls to an exe (eg. foo.exe) and received a message indicating that the file (eg. foo.exe.dll) could not be found.

[jayfox911]

Has anyone tested with Windows 7? I am trying to recompile my NSIS installer that was built on XP but now it will not work on Windows 7.
I have .NET 2.0 SP1 framework installed and download the newest CLR.zip form
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Call_.NE...ethods_plug-in

nsi file

PHP Code:

OutFile "setup.exe"
Section

  InitPluginsDir
  SetOutPath $PLUGINSDIR
  
  File "AccessClass.dll"
  File CLR.dll
  CLR::Call /NOUNLOAD AccessClass.dll AccessClass.Access removeData 1 "dataTable"
  
  pop $0  
  MessageBox MB_OK $0
  CLR::Destroy
  
SectionEnd 


From the MakeNSISW

PHP Code:

InitPluginsDir
SetOutPath: "$PLUGINSDIR"
File: "AccessClass.dll" ***91;compress***93; 4493/24576 bytes
File: "CLR.dll" ***91;compress***93; 31773/95744 bytes
Invalid command: CLR::Call
Error in script "C:\testscript.nsi" on line 9 -- aborting creation process 


[jayfox911]

Originally Posted by rbchasetfb

claesabrandt, very cool that we got through that one. Thanks for sticking with it too. As a thanks, I thought I would post some code that I use in my .NET dll that CLR.dll is calling. It allows the functions in the .NET dll to update the Details list during the install without have to wait to return to the installer and then do a DetailPrint call with some funky string work. The code is in VB.NET, but could easily be converted to C#. The error handling is a little brute force in the MakeLogEntry function, it just ignores the error and returns, potentially writing nothing to the Details list. Non-the-less, very useful I think.

VB.NET Code Required:

PHP Code:

Imports System
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Imports System.Threading
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Windows.Forms

Namespace NSIS

    Public Class TestClass

        //LVITEM Structure Declaration.
        <StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)> _
        Public Structure LVITEM
            Public mask As Int32
            Public iItem As Int32
            Public iSubItem As Int32
            Public state As Int32
            Public stateMask As Int32
            Public pszText As String
            Public cchTextMax As Int32
            Public iImage As Int32
            Public lParam As IntPtr
        End Structure

        //SendMessage API declarations.
        Public Declare Function SendMessageLV Lib "user32" Alias _
          "SendMessageA"(ByVal hwnd As IntPtr, _
                         ByVal wMsg As Int32, _
                         ByVal wParam As Integer, _
                         ByRef lParam As LVITEM) As Integer
        Public Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias _
          "SendMessageA"(ByVal hwnd As IntPtr, _
                         ByVal wMsg As Int32, _
                         ByVal wParam As Integer, _
                         ByRef lParam As Integer) As Integer                

        //Constants used by LVITEM and SendMessage
        Public Const LVM_FIRST as Integer = &H1000 
        Public Const LVM_GETITEMCOUNT as Integer = LVM_FIRST + 4
        Public Const LVM_GETITEM as Integer = LVM_FIRST + 5
        Public Const LVM_INSERTITEM as Integer = LVM_FIRST + 7
        Public Const LVM_SCROLL as Integer = LVM_FIRST + 20
        Public Const LVIF_TEXT as Integer = &H0001
        Public Const LVIS_FOCUSED as Integer = &H0001

        //Test function for calling from an NSIS installer using CLR.dll
        Public Function ChopString( _
                ByVal hwnd as IntPtr, _
                ByVal stringToChop as String, _
                ByVal chopToLength as Integer) As String
            Dim ret as String = ""
            If stringToChop.Length > chopToLength Then
                MakeLogEntry(hwnd, "Chopping String '" & stringToChop & "'.")
                ret = stringToChop.SubString(0,chopToLength)
                MakeLogEntry(hwnd, "String chopped to '" & ret & "'.")
            Else
                MakeLogEntry(hwnd, "String '" & _
                    stringToChop & _
                    "' to short to chop to length '" & _
                    chopToLength & "'.")
            End If
            Return ret
        End Function

        //Here's the key function that writes to the Details list.
        Public Sub MakeLogEntry(ByVal hwnd As IntPtr, entry as String)
            Try
                //Get current list count
                Dim c as Integer = SendMessage(hwnd,LVM_GETITEMCOUNT,0,0)+1
                //Setup a LVITEM structure for the Insert message
                Dim lv As New LVITEM
                lv.iItem = c
                lv.pszText = entry
                lv.mask = LVIF_TEXT
                lv.stateMask = LVIS_FOCUSED
                lv.state = LVIS_FOCUSED
                //Insert the LVITEM into the list
                c = SendMessageLV(hwnd, LVM_INSERTITEM, 0, lv)
                //Scroll the list so the item is visible
                SendMessage(hwnd,LVM_SCROLL,0,12)
            Catch ex As Exception
                Do Nothing, just return
            End Try
        End Sub

    End Class

End NameSpace 


NSIS Code with CLR.dll call to test with:

PHP Code:

Name "Test CLRDLL MakeLogEntry"
OutFile "TestCLRDLL.exe"
ShowInstDetails show
Var DetailsHWND
Page instfiles

Section
    DetailPrint "Starting Test"
    InitPluginsDir
    SetOutPath $PLUGINSDIR
    File "TestCLRDLL.dll"
    FindWindow $0 "#32770" "" $HWNDPARENT
    GetDlgItem $DetailsHWND $0 1016
    CLR::Call "TestCLRDLL.dll" 
        "NSIS.TestClass" 
        "ChopString" 
        3 
        $DetailsHWND "Testing Make Log Entry" 9
    Pop $0
    DetailPrint "ChopString Result = $0"
    DetailPrint "Test Complete"
SectionEnd 


Lastly, I've attached a zip file of the TestCLRDLL.dll project for VS2005 and included the TESTCLRDLL.nsi as will. Enjoy. I hope it's as useful for use as it is for me.

This example will not work for me also. Any ideas?

[Afrow UK]

Firstly you don't need to extract plug-in DLL's to use them. NSIS handles that itself. Also, if NSIS says a plug-in call is an invalid command then that means your plug-in DLL isn't in the NSIS Plugins folder.

Stu

[jayfox911]

Originally Posted by Afrow UK

Firstly you don't need to extract plug-in DLL's to use them. NSIS handles that itself. Also, if NSIS says a plug-in call is an invalid command then that means your plug-in DLL isn't in the NSIS Plugins folder.

Stu

Thank you that worked.
I put the CLR.dll in the \Program Files\NSIS\Plugins\ folder. Just like the second sentence of the CLR wiki says to do. Next time I will RTFM

[taralex]

I got stuck for a couple of days when trying to move my installation to a Unicode-based NSIS. All my calls just stopped working. After a vain search for a similar dll, but supporting unicode, I downloaded the original source and upgraded it.
Now this was my first ever experience with c++, so I'm really not sure if I just didn't screw something up, but it worked in a couple of tests I did. I posted the link to the updated code on the Viki page.

I moved all the more or less complex functionality to a .net dll now, because all other means of calling dlls (like System::Call) stopped working in the Unicode release of NSIS.

[langdon]

Is anyone capable of recompiling this to add 4.0 support? It'll execute 4.0 assemblies, but will fail if you use any 3.5+ features (like simple Linq statements).

[mfiedlerwd]

Hi Claes,

I have already problems on setting/getting Properties.

namespace test
{
public class test
{

// Properties
private string _Name = "";

public string Name
{
get { return _Name; }
set { _Name = value; }
}


public string helloworld()
{
return "Hello " + Name;
}
}
}

I first call the set_name Property, then the helloworld method. But allways the Propety is empty on the second call.

It seems that on every call will generated a new object instance of the dll.

Did you already hav fixed this problem? Or have a solution?

Best Regards,
Michael

[Afrow UK]

To avoid incompatibility issues which can occur with different .NET versions I would put your .NET code into a command-line executable and run it using ExecDos.

Stu

[mfiedlerwd]

Hi Stu, thanks for the suggestion.

Well, when i do a simple call it works fine with an exe or the dll as well.

But when i need to do multiple calls, i think i will have a problem with an exe. (ex. i have to do some database related work and in OLEDB-PLUGIN script files are limited to 60k, so i wrote a .net dll )

Best regards

Michael