mir.net

.NET Implementation of Mir Ref-Counted Type System (MTS)

Features

• Fast generic types that are easy to construct, use, and pass between managed and unmanaged code.
• Faster than Protocol Buffers as well as any other serialization library because it is completely zero-copy.
• Requires around half the user code compared to Protocol Buffers.
• D and C++ implementations are provided via Mir Algorithm
• D, C++, and C# MTS implementations are self-contained. C# implementation requires neither Mir Algorithm nor D/C/C++ runtimes.
• Hands-free. Just construct, pass, and forget. Mir objects hold all required information to destroy them and free memory.

The library is used in a large private codebase.

Install with NuGet

Or build NuGet package your self.

cd Mir
dotnet pack --configuration Release

Basic Types

• Array
• Array slices
• Matrices
• Sorted dictionaries (Series)
• Slim shared pointers
• Shared Pointers with inheritance
• POD small strings

Composed user-defined types

Mir types can be composed using other Mir types and C# POD types that don't require special marshaling. MirWrapper is a base class for all non-POD library and user-defined Mir types. It requires the structure payload (Impl) to be defined.

MirPtr and MirSlimPtr can be used to wrap a native type without defining its structure payload in C#.

Table of correspondence

(check the source repository if the table isn't rendered correctly because of the nuget issue)

D Type	C# Type	C++ Type
SlimRCPtr!Type	MirSlimPtr<Type>	mir_slim_rcptr<Type>
RCPtr!Type	MirPtr<Type>	mir_rcptr<Type>
RCArray!Type	`MirArray<Type, @>$ \times 2	$mir_rcarray`
Slice!(RCI!Type)	`Slice$ \times 2	$mir_slice<mir_rci>`
Slice!(RCI!Type, 2)	`Matrix$ \times 2	$mir_slice<mir_rci, 2>`
Slice!(Type*)	`SliceView<Type, @>$ \times 2	$mir_slice<Type*>`
Series!(RCI!Key, RCI!Value)	`Series<Key, Value, @>$ \times 2	$mir_series<mir_rci, mir_rci>`
SmallString!N	SmallStringN, N=4,31,32,64,128	mir::SmallString<N>
Series!(RCI!(RCArray!(const char)), RCI!Value)	StringSeries<Value>	mir_series<mir_rci<mir_rcarray<const char>>, mir_rci<Value>>

Name<... , @>$ \times 2 - \text{means} \text{a} \text{type} \text{has} \text{two} \text{declarations}, $Name<... > and Name<... , Impl>, where Impl is an unmanaged C# handle structure that describes non-POD Mir Type.

Composed Mir Type (CMT) is a type that is composed of CMT fields, library RefCounted fields, and POD structures and types.

Unmanaged C# handles should use byte instead of bool.