I am creating an iOS Plugin which needs to return a string (or const char*) to Unity. How do I implement it ?
2 Answers
I'd like to clarify previous answer. C# declaration:
[DllImport("__Internal")]
private static extern string getString();
Returning a string from objc is exactly like @Cabrra said:
char* convertNSStringToCString(const NSString* nsString)
{
if (nsString == NULL)
return NULL;
const char* nsStringUtf8 = [nsString UTF8String];
//create a null terminated C string on the heap so that our string's memory isn't wiped out right after method's return
char* cString = (char*)malloc(strlen(nsStringUtf8) + 1);
strcpy(cString, nsStringUtf8);
return cString;
}
extern "C" char* getString()
{
const NSString* str = @"string";
return convertNSStringToCString(str);
}
Though some people mentioned that this way will lead to a memory leak that is not right. This way works fine in Unity and no leaks occurs (I tested it many times). Unity clearly states that
String values returned from a native method should be UTF–8 encoded and allocated on the heap. Mono marshalling calls free for strings like this.
1 Comment
NiñoScript
You can also use
strdup. return strdup([nsString UTF8String]); extern "C"
{
int _pow2(int x)
{
// Just a simple example of returning an int value
return x * x;
}
// Returns a char* (a string to Unity)
char* _helloWorldString()
{
// We can use NSString and go to the c string that Unity wants
NSString *helloString = @"Hello World";
// UTF8String method gets us a c string. Then we have to malloc a copy to give to Unity. I reuse a method below that makes it easy.
return cStringCopy([helloString UTF8String]);
}
// Here is an example of getting a string from Unity
char* _combineStrings(const char* cString1, const char* cString2)
{
// This shows we can create two NSStrings* from the c strings from Unity
NSString *string1 = CreateNSString(cString1);
NSString *string2 = CreateNSString(cString2);
NSString *combinedString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %@", string1, string2];
// Same as before, have to go to a c string and then malloc a copy of it to give to Unity
return cStringCopy([combinedString UTF8String]);
}
}
//I also like to include these two convenience methods to convert between c string and NSString*. You need to return a copy of the c string so that Unity handles the memory and gets a valid value.
char* cStringCopy(const char* string)
{
if (string == NULL)
return NULL;
char* res = (char*)malloc(strlen(string) + 1);
strcpy(res, string);
return res;
}
// This takes a char* you get from Unity and converts it to an NSString* to use in your objective c code. You can mix c++ and objective c all in the same file.
static NSString* CreateNSString(const char* string)
{
if (string != NULL)
return [NSString stringWithUTF8String:string];
else
return [NSString stringWithUTF8String:""];
}
5 Comments
Chris
Remember to free the string again after the bytes are turned into a managed string or there will be memory leaks if you keep using malloc, the string needs to be freed in the c# code with Marshal.FreeHGlobal I believe.
Andrea Gorrieri
"You need to return a copy of the c string so that Unity handles the memory and gets a valid value". Does it mean that Unity automatically handles memory management? I agree with @Chris that malloc needs be freed to avoid memory leaks. Chris how can I free the C-malloced memory within C#? Can you give more details about Marhsal.FreeGlobal?
Michael DiCioccio
cStringCopy helped me a lot for passing Objective-C NSString back to C# (Unity)
LoDani
@AndreaGorrieri Only to clarify: the signature of
_helloWorldString in C# code would be: static extern string _helloWorldString();. So the char* returns to Unity as a managed string and no free is needed, it will be deallocated automatically by the system.trojanfoe
BTW
cStringCopy() is exactly the same as strdup() that's been in the standard C library since the late 1960's.