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New Post: how to use this

OlivierNallet — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:38:48 GMT

Sure!

Please have a look into the "How to get started" discussion - April 21st 2009.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,

Olivier

New Post: how to use this

divyang4481 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:14:43 GMT

Hi all,

Please give some note for how to use this hence new developer like me can understand about how to do that

New Post: that's a too big task for only one developer

OlivierNallet — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:19:52 GMT

Hello,

Hmm, I'm not sure I understand what you are saying.

CrossNet is just the runtime components, so as such the number of types is relatively limited (only base types and interfaces are supported). And this is on purpose to scale the full .NET down to the core portion. The other project (CrossNetSystem) is a skeleton for 0.001% of the .NET BCL. Just to show how this can be done and to be improved over time. Nothing prevents the end user to actually use Mono BCLs (which I believe is not GPL) for a bigger covereage of the BCL.

The purpose of CrossNet is to provide the runtime for lightweight platforms that have a C++ compiler (like mobile phones, game consoles, embedded systems, etc...) and in these case the users don't need full BCL anyway, just the core components.

Regards,

Olivier

New Post: that's a too big task for only one developer

dmihailescu — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:55:12 GMT

Your intention is commendable but the means to achieve that loafty goal are not there.

If I were you, I would try to scale back the scope of this project to support only certain types and features.

In order to help the developers to use only the features supported, I would creeate an assembly or type attribute similar to AttributeCLSCompliant, to signal when non compliant types or features are used.

It would be up to the developer to use this attribute only when needed.

New Post: How to get started

OlivierNallet — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:27:15 GMT

Hi,
I tested everything from scratch and documented every single steps in the "How to get started page".
Let me know if there is something not clear or missing.
Regards,
Olivier

New Post: How to get started

OlivierNallet — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:48:04 GMT

Hello,
I guess it doesn't help when the wiki now incorrectly parses the text "C++" and underline every pages entirely. :)

Actually the "how to get started" page describes a workflow that is not enabled anymore. Sorry about that, I'll fix the page in the next few days.
In the meantime, you can read the steps in the download page (with the release) as they are accurate - although I did not test with the very latest reflector version (will do this week-end to make sure there is no new issue there).

The best to get started is to use the C# benchmark example. It has everything needed with the current release of CrossNetSystem.
And get you a simple framework to start with. As indicated in the steps, you will have to update some of the pathing for include paths and libraries to match your local configuration.

About Mono BCL, if you have the assemblies directly you should be able to pass them as is with CrossNet parser. (You may be able to download them directly from the mono website).
Now I would not put my hope too high. The reason is that they certainly depend on a ton of other assemblies or low level code / pinvoke.
CrossNetParser will parse it, and generate the whole cpp code. Potentially it will compile it correctly (depending of some edge cases not supported or referencing other assemblies) but I don't believe it will link.
A better choice is to take the C# sources of the Mono BCL and disables everythying that you don't need, recompile the C# code with DevStudio and generate the C++ from that new assembly.
This makes it much more manageable and you will integrate things one at a time with full control.
That's the process I did when I integrated the Mono unit-tests in my test framework, but the BCL was pointing to my local implementation (a variation of CrossNetSystem).

I hope it helps!
Cheers,
Olivier

New Post: How to get started

claudiolyra — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:40:06 GMT

Hello Olivier.

Your project is very interesting and I am sorry to see you have discontinued it.
I would like to give it a try but the information in your site is a little bit limited and some references seem do not match the actual download (for example, I am not sure to what are you referring to when you mention the CrossNet Console).
Can you give some short step-by-step tutorial on how to get started porting an assembly? For example, I have seen the explanation on the use of the parser with the Reflection command line but I am not sure how to convert the Mono BCL into c++ in the first place (is it enough to have Mono installed in the machine? What to do then?)
I am kind of confused and I would strongly appreciate your help to get jump started in playing with it.

Again, congratulations for your project and I am looking forward to listening from you soon.

Salute!

New Post: Roadmap, platforms targeted, memory footprint...

OlivierNallet — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:17:21 GMT

Bonjour Chris! :)
Sorry for the delay.

>>Do you still devote some time on it?

Right now, I do not devote any time on CrossNet, for a couple of reasons:
- The latest point release contained enough features / was stable enough to be used as a good starting point.
- Although I receive here and there emails from people using it (like cellphone and video-game companies...), there is not enough traffic for me to justify spending much more time on the implementation :).

Now things could change (i.e. I could get back to it) quickly if I feel that customers were interested by a more active participation and there was a bigger "live" community. :)
I always answer support questions though (mostly offline) and do my best to help people get started.
And I'm always open for new contributions.

>>What's the roadmap for it?

Most of .NET 2.0 features are supported. (A big one missing though is everything related to multi-threading).

You can find here the features that could be added relatively easily (but are not critical for most embedded projects):
http://crossnet.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Features%20to%20be%20supported%20soon

And here the features that are not going to be supported as either it's a ton of work, a big memory cost or cannot be "emulated" in C++.
http://crossnet.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Features%20not%20expected%20to%20be%20supported%20soon

That being said, the biggest amount of remaining work is related to the BCL implementation (CrossNetSystem is just a basic framework). But usually people are just re-implementing the small set they are using or use the Mono implementations.

>>If I understand well Crossnet, it would allow to avoid having the whole "fat" .NET/Mono CLR and to just have a lightweight environment. Am I right?

Yes, CrossNet is extremely lightweight. Just the bare minimum. For a complex project, most of the cost will depend on the BCL usage though.
Also some features (like reflection) are not supported mostly for memory reasons. If one wants a full .NET compatibility / feature set, then Mono would be a better fit, but unlike CrossNet the commercial license is not free.

Do not hesitate if you have more questions.
Cheers,
Olivier

New Post: Roadmap, platforms targeted, memory footprint...

GoodGoodGood — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:22:11 GMT

Hello Olivier (Bonjour, devrais-je dire???)

Your project looks very interesting and promising. Yet, it appears there has been no release for a long time now. Do you still devote some time on it? What's the roadmap for it?

I see some nice situations where such an "environment" would be interesting: small ARM boxes but as well dedicated virtual machines. If I understand well Crossnet, it would allow to avoid having the whole "fat" .NET/Mono CLR and to just have a lightweight environment. Am I right? If that's the case, I'd really like to get a clear idea of what's implemented and what's not, and of course to see the project going forward (or even maybe I'll try to participate as that could be a + for our company).

Best regards,

Chris

New Post: GC in CrossNetRuntime/CrossNetSystem

OlivierNallet — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:26:47 GMT

Hi Leslie,
I'm glad that CrossNet works well for you!

About the garbage collection, it should run directly when the heap runs out of memory.
In the unit-tests, I run the GC after each test to make sure the previous test doesn't impact negatively the next test.
Some benchmark tests are running out of memory on purpose to stress-test the GC.

The way it works is that when we detect that we don't have enough memory, we call GCManager::Collect() - you can see the call at the end of GCAllocator::Allocate().
There is a trick though, if you collect in the middle of function calls, all the managed pointers stored locally will not be traced correctly as they will be stored on the stack.
The resolution is "relatively" easy.
You have to consider that all the CPU registers and the whole stack can point to collected objects (and you actually have to quickly determine if a pointer is a managed object or not to trace it).
The code is done in GCManager::TraceStack() with a very little bit of assembly code (so it has to be adapted depending of the platform).
Also we have to parse the whole stack from top to bottom (you can limit the upper side) as we don't control the generated code from the C++ compiler, so we can't tell that a particular variable on the stack is a managed pointer or not. CrossNet is taking care of most of that though, you pretty much just need to provide ways to list the registers and the beginning / end of the stack.
Without providing this piece of code, you will only be able to call the GC explicitly on some "safe" points where you know that there is no local managed pointers in the stack.

I didn't test extensively the String library so I'm not that surprised that there are some leaks in some pieces of C++ code. I focused mostly on the core framework.
Any improvement is extremely welcome! But I honestly don't know when I will do the next release as it depends of the level of interest from the community.

I really appreciate your help!
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask whether it's high or low level, I'll be happy to help you!

Regards,
Olivier

New Post: GC in CrossNetRuntime/CrossNetSystem

CogCode — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:52:02 GMT

Hi there,

I'm the CTO of a software company that specializes in conversational AI techonogies.

The bulk of our codebase is C#/.NET, although we do have a minimal runtime in C++ that we maintain in parallel for tiny platforms.

Maintaining two codebases is a pain, considering that we need to have flawlessly identical behaviors within each version.

I've been looking at CrossNet as an interesting way to have our core code-base ENTIRELY written in C#, with auto-generated core for natively compiled runtimes.

Interestingly enough, after I spent some time beefing up your String and FileIO support, along with a couple of other elements, I can now auto-generate our core in its entirety. I have a couple of tasks to complete regarding Lua integration to match our original cores, but on the whole, I now have what I was looking for.

Let me clarify: I am now at the point where I can build a working application around the CrossNet generated C++ version of our core, with NO hand tweaking of the C++ version. As a side note, I also have it compiling into a linkable library, which would be very useful to us in terms of deploying an SDK.

Here is my question, and maybe it is too general, but how do I enable automated garbage collection within the context of the running application?

Your example benchmark application does recursive cleanup AFTER the benchmarks have executed, but I want to be able to periodically invoke GC within the context of the application.

I have some other questions about what seem to be memory leaks involving Strings and such, those can wait for another time.

Anyway, I feel like I am 95% of where I need to be with this, as our codebase works in its intirety with CrossNet. I just need a little insight to get that last 5%, and would appreciate any help.

Also, I would be happy to give my CrossNet modifications back for you to integrate into the CrossNet codebase. My FileIO enhancements, while functional for my purposes, is probably a little off-base in terms of how it should be implemented. However, you can probably use my additions to the String library almost as-is.

Cheers,
Leslie

NEW POST: Will .NET applications run on PS3?

Koichi — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:19:43 GMT

Hi Oliver!
Thank you for this information.
I've seen links to Cell B.E. SDK on IBM's website, though haven't downloaded them yet.
It seems to be a long story... I'll post here when I'm done and familiar with Cell API.
Thank you!

NEW POST: Will .NET applications run on PS3?

OlivierNallet — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:19:19 GMT

Hi Koichi,
Sorry for the delay.
Unfortunately PS3 API is not public in my knowledge (there maybe be a public version like the Yaroze on PS2 but I'm not aware of that). But you can get the Cell SDK on IBM's website, that should get close enough.
Once you are all setup and familiar with the compiler and examples, I'll send you privately some emails about Crossnet to synchronize the various work being done and where you can help.
Thanks!

NEW POST: Will .NET applications run on PS3?

Koichi — Fri, 23 May 2008 06:01:15 GMT

Thanks again, Oliver!
Actually, I'd like to discover both topics.
I suppose the first task for me is to learn at least some basics of PS3 native API, which doesn't seem to support .NET/Mono applications, but ASM/C++ does.
So just then I'll be possibly able to help with the conversion of CrossNet to PS3/PSP (and other Cell / PowerPC based computers/consoles).
Also I should to get familiar with the logics of CrossNet/CrossNetSystem then.
Can you give me a direction on these tasks? Is there anyone else working on CrossNet + PS3?

NEW POST: Will .NET applications run on PS3?

OlivierNallet — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:29:58 GMT

Thanks Koici for the links!
I didn't know about celldotnet, I actually wanted to do a similar extension for CrossNet to hide DMA accesses an so on (but again still compiling C++code for SPU, not JIT).
It seems the two projects fit nicely together and I'll contact them to see if we can workout something.

I'm not sure to understand your questions though.
Are you asking how you could learn the PS3 API to develop games on PS3, or are you asking what would be the best way for you to help the conversion of CrossNet to PS3 and other platforms?

You are welcome to participate to the development of CrossNet. Just so you know, there are two levels of implementations though.
For the CrossNetRuntime and the parser (CrossNet project), there is quite some work involved.
For the BCL implementation (CrossNetSystem project), the work is much simpler and at first would not have to be PS3 specific, for example File IO could be done on PC first then adapted on PS3.
Obviously you would not want to rewrite all the .NET API but you might want some core components.
Depending of your project, you might be able to take Mono's BCL implementation or negotiate a deal with them, but the PS3 and other platforms, you may have to do a significant re-write anyway.

Cheers,
Olivier

NEW POST: Will .NET applications run on PS3?

Koichi — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:37:10 GMT

Thank you for your reply, Oliver!
That's just what I thought, the porting to PS3 isn't complete yet.
Can I participate while I have no idea on how to make it yet?
I would be very grateful if you would give me some tips and directions on how to make it, so that I could start trying.
Meanwhile I was just asking the similar questions about running/porting&running .NET applications on PS3
Sony Computer Entertainment US - Research and Development
Playstation.com forums - Something like XNA for PS3?

Should I start with learning PS3 API?
How would you attempt?

NEW POST: Will .NET applications run on PS3?

OlivierNallet — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:06:10 GMT

Hi Koichi,
The idea is for CrossNet to be able to run on PS3, Wii, X360, NDS, PSP, PC, phones and other.
Although it should not be very hard, there is quite some work involved to make it work on PS3.
One contributor already sent me modifications to have CrossNet runtime compiling on gcc / NDS, the parser has to be adapted as well.
X360 should be relatively easy as the compiler frontend is the same as the PC version, so that part would be very easy.
Some people are looking at converting CrossNet to X360 / PS3, but there is no time frame yet.
Any contribution would be greatly appreciated, as having support for X360 and PS3 would give more momentum to this project.

For the BCL, the current implementation is very limited right now, it's mostly to show how to do it.
The implementation of the BCL is very easy, so one could add the pieces needed and share it with the community.

Regards,
Olivier

NEW POST: Will .NET applications run on PS3?

Koichi — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:45:20 GMT

I was trying to find a way for .NET applications to run on PS3, but there seem to be no clear way for that yet.
At least I haven't managed to find a compiler.
Can there be a BCL for CrossNet to compile a .NET application into something PS3 native?
Where should I look for that?

NEW POST: Use C# GUI from C++ ?

OlivierNallet — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:25:27 GMT

Correct, it may be better to use p/invoke in your case (the C# code driving C++ backend, which is the other way around).

Note that you could change CrossNet to generate wrappers for you (managed-wrapper to be used my unmanaged C++ code), although it should not be extremely complicated, that would be more painful than the p/invokes.

NEW POST: Use C# GUI from C++ ?

dimzon — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:14:28 GMT

Hi!
I'm strongly recomend you to change your architecture. Turn your C++ code into library and create DLL. Now you can write your frontend using regular .NET CLR and invoke this DLL