Description
Related Roslyn issue: dotnet/roslyn#73421
The [UnsafeAccessorAttribute]
(API Proposal) is used on static extern
functions to instruct the .NET runtime to generate an accessor method to a type member that bypass the normal .NET visibility checks.
public class MyClass
{
private int _hidden;
...
}
public static partial class AccessHelpers
{
[UnsafeAccessor(UnsafeAccessorKind.Field, Name="_hidden")]
public static extern ref int GetHiddenField(MyClass c); // runtime generated implementation
}
...
public static MyClass DeserializeMyClass(string s)
{
MyClass x = new MyClass();
ref int hiddenFieldRef = ref AccessHelpers.GetHiddenField(x);
hiddenFieldRef = int.Parse(s);
return x;
}
}
With [UnsafeAccessor]
it becomes possible to use source-generated reflection-free serializers that can serialize and deserialize fields of user-defined classes. For example, a user may add a new field _hidden
to MyClass
and the source generator will add a new accessor method to AccessHelpers
and generate a method DeserializeMyClass
that uses the access method to populate the hidden field.
Currently if the user adds a second private field _hidden2
and the generator adds a new static extern
method, EnC will report a rude edit:
error ENC0025: Adding an extern method requires restarting the application.
Note that it should work with generics, too
After Roslyn adds support for EnC deltas to include static extern
methods, we need to validate that such deltas are processed appropriately by the .NET runtimes:
- Validate/implement CoreCLR hot reload support for
static extern
methods - Validate/implement Mono hot reload support for
static extern
methods