C# P/Invoke structure problem

Question

I am trying to write a C# P/Invoke wrapper for a C API (a native Win dll), and generally this is working fine. The only exception is a specific method which takes a struct a

Answer 1

I had almost exactly the same problem - but with ReadMagstripe. And the solution provided here for EncodeMagstripe did not work for ReadMagstripe! I think the reason it did not work was that ReadMagstripe has to return data into the TRACKDATA structure/class, while EncodeMagstripe only passes data to the dll and data in TRACKDATA does not need to be changed. Here is the implementation that eventually worked for me - both with EncodeMagstripe and ReadMagstripe:

    public const int MAX_ICE_MS_TRACK_LENGTH = 256;
    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    public struct TRACKDATA
    {  
        public UInt32 nLength;
        [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = 256)]
        public string szTrackData;
    }


    [DllImport("ICE_API.dll", EntryPoint="_ReadMagstripe@20", CharSet=CharSet.Auto, 
        CallingConvention=CallingConvention.Winapi, SetLastError=true)]
    [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
    public static extern bool ReadMagstripe(int hdc, ref TRACKDATA ptrack1, ref TRACKDATA ptrack2,
         ref TRACKDATA ptrack3, ref TRACKDATA reserved);

    [DllImport("ICE_API.dll", EntryPoint="_EncodeMagstripe@20", CharSet=CharSet.Auto,
        CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Winapi, SetLastError=true)]
    public static extern bool EncodeMagstripe(int hdc, [In] ref TRACKDATA ptrack1, [In] ref TRACKDATA ptrack2,
        [In] ref TRACKDATA ptrack3, [In] ref TRACKDATA reserved);


/*
        ....
*/


    private void EncodeMagstripe()
    {
        ICE_API.TRACKDATA track1Data = new ICE_API.TRACKDATA();
        ICE_API.TRACKDATA track2Data = new ICE_API.TRACKDATA();
        ICE_API.TRACKDATA track3Data = new ICE_API.TRACKDATA();
        ICE_API.TRACKDATA reserved = new ICE_API.TRACKDATA();

        //if read magstripe
        bool bRes = ICE_API.ReadMagstripe(printer.Hdc, ref track1Data, ref track2Data,
            ref track3Data, ref reserved);

        //encode magstripe
        if (bRes)
        {
            track2Data.szTrackData = "1234567890";
            track2Data.nLength = 10;

            bRes = ICE_API.EncodeMagstripe(printer.Hdc, ref track1Data, ref track2Data, ref track3Data, ref reserved);
        }
    }