Handling char* in C# (strlen function?)
arrays, c#, c++, character-encoding, strlen
Solution
`Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi()` does exactly what you need:
Allocates a managed String and copies all characters up to the first null character from a string stored in unmanaged memory into it.
Incidentally, the method calls `lstrlenA` on the pointer, which is actually just an import from `kernel32.dll`. In other words, there does not appear to be a managed "get me the length of this unmanaged string" method available.
Problem
I'm dealing with a char* in C# code (in an unsafe section). Is there any way to call the strlen function from C#. It goes against all common sense to have to write a custom strlen function to search for the null terminator. Isn't there a way to call strlen from C# or a similar method that I have access to? In the big picture I'm trying to convert the char* to a string object, but the characters are in ANSCII format, so I'm going to use the .NET Encoding.Convert namespace to convert it. But I need to know the length of the string before I do that.