DotNET.jl

This package provides interoperability between Julia and Common Language Runtime, the execution engine of .NET applications. Many languages run on CLR, including C#, Visual Basic .NET and PowerShell.

⚠ This package is still a Work-In-Progress, its behaviors and public APIs may change dramatically.

Prerequisites

You will need to have .NET Core SDK/runtime 2.0 or higher installed on the machine (Download). If the package fails to locate the runtime, set DOTNET_ROOT environment variable to the path containing the dotnet or dotnet.exe binary.

⚠ .NET Framework is currently not supported (but on the roadmap).

This package uses Artifacts to provide binary dependencies, so Julia 1.3+ is required.

Installation

julia> using Pkg

julia> Pkg.add(PackageSpec(url="https://github.com/azurefx/DotNET.jl"))

Usage

1. Use T"AssemblyQualifiedTypeName" to address a type:

julia> Console=T"System.Console, mscorlib"
System.Console

2. Use . to access a member:

julia> Console.WriteLine("Hello, CLR!");
Hello, CLR!

3. Use reflection to load assemblies from file:

julia> T"System.Reflection.Assembly".LoadFrom(raw"C:\Users\Azure\Desktop\test.dll")
System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly("test, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null")

4. To create an object:

julia> T"System.String".new('6',Int32(3))
"666"

julia> List=T"System.Collections.Generic.List`1"
System.Collections.Generic.List`1[T]

julia> List.new[T"System.Int64"]()
System.Collections.Generic.List`1[System.Int64]("System.Collections.Generic.List`1[System.Int64]")

5. To create delegates from Julia methods:

julia> list=List.new[T"System.Int64"](1:5);

julia> list.RemoveAll(delegate(iseven,T"System.Predicate`1[System.Int64]"))
2

julia> collect(list)
3-element Array{Int64,1}:
 1
 3
 5

TODO

• Implicit conversions when calling CLR methods
• More operators
• using directive like C#
• Smart assembly/type resolution
• Configurable runtime versions
• Julia type system consistency
• .NET Framework support
• PowerShell support (maybe in another package)