.. _get-started-windows-camsdk-cs-label:

CameraSDK : C# (Windows)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We provide .NET language bindings based on `.NET Standard 2.0 <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/net-standard>`_. Even though .NET is cross platform, our .NET assembly is not. Since it depends directly on :term:`unmanaged code` compiled for Windows.

Prerequisites
^^^^^^^^^^^^^

* Windows 10 (x64)
* .NET Standard 2.0 compatible .NET SDK
* MSVC Redistributable 2015-2022

.. content-if::
    :format: html

    The C# libraries are provided as part of our standard Windows library ZIP packages. You can download the package, containing both C# and C++ libraries at the :ref:`download-label` page.

.. content-if::
    :format: pdf
    
    The C# libraries are provided as part of our standard Windows library ZIP packages. You can download the package, containing both C# and C++ libraries at `developer.phaseone.com <https://developer.phaseone.com>`_.

.. tip:: 
    If you do not have the Microsoft Visual C++ toolchain installed, you will need to download and install the *redistributable runtime*. 
    
    Download the newest runtime from Microsoft here: `Latest Visual C++ Redistributable downloads <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist>`_.

Setup Your Project
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

To account for those who do not use *Visual Studio*, we use the command line .NET Core utility ``dotnet`` in this tutorial.

Open up *PowerShell* or *command prompt*, and navigate to the location where you want to put our sample project. Initialize a new .NET Core console based application:

.. code:: powershell

    PS> dotnet new console -n helloworld

Here we called our sample project ``helloworld``.

Now, ``cd`` into the ``helloworld`` directory. Copy your downloaded CameraSDK zip file into the project folder and extract the archive. If you use *PowerShell* you can: 

.. code:: powershell

    PS> Expand-Archive .\CameraSdk-Win_Release_2.X.X.zip -DestinationPath .

You will end up with libraries for both *C++* and *C#* inside a folder named: ``dest``. The resulting directory layout should be::

    dest
    |-- Cs
    |-- include
    `-- lib

We do not need neither the ``include`` nor the ``lib`` subdirectories, you can delete those if you want to.

Project File
^^^^^^^^^^^^

The ``dotnet`` util created a project file for us: ``helloworld.csproj``. We need to add the CameraSDK assembly to this, and also add a post-build copy step. This should copy the file ``CameraSdkCBindingsForCs.dll`` to the build output directory. This file is needed by the CameraSDK library assembly.

Add the CameraSDK C# library assembly and dependency to ``helloworld.csproj``. The xml snippet below should be appended inside the existing ``Project`` tag:

.. code:: xml

    <ItemGroup>
    
        <!-- Include CameraSDK C# API -->
        <Reference Include="CameraSdkCs.dll">
            <HintPath>dest/Cs/CameraSdkCs.dll</HintPath>
        </Reference>

        <!-- Dependency of CameraSDK C# API -->
        <None Include="dest/Cs/CameraSdkCBindingsForCs.dll" Link="CameraSdkCBindingsForCs.dll">
            <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
        </None>

    </ItemGroup>

We added both the assembly (``CameraSdkCs.dll``) for the C# API and its dependency, a DLL file compiled by the Visual C++ compiler (``CameraSdkCBindingsForCs.dll``).

.. note:: Despite of the both files having the ``.dll`` extension, they are *not* the same format. One is a *.NET assembly* file, and the other is a standard dynamic library file with plain C functions inside.

Source Code
^^^^^^^^^^^

The console application template include a sample source file: ``Program.cs``. Replace its content with this:

.. code:: csharp

    using System;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.Linq;
    using P1.CameraSdk;

    namespace helloworld
    {
        class Program
        {
            static void Main(string[] args)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Probing for available cameras...");

                IEnumerable<CameraDescriptor> cameras = Camera.GetAvailableCameras();
                
                foreach(var camera in cameras)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("* {0}", camera);
                }
                
                if (cameras.Any() == false)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Could not find a camera!");
                }
            }
        }
    }

The source code will query for any USB connected Phase One cameras. The connected cameras are listed in the console, before the program exits.

Build & Run
^^^^^^^^^^^

To compile the project, simply run the ``build`` command:

.. code:: powershell

    PS> dotnet build

This will build and copy the needed (assembly's and DLL's) to the build output directory. For .NET 5 this is ``bin/Debug/net5``.

To run the application, first ``cd`` into the build directory and run the executable:

.. code:: powershell

    PS> cd bin/Debug/net5
    PS> helloworld.exe
    Probing for available cameras...
    * CameraDesc: name=IQ4 150MP type=USB serial=JD012345 is-open=no
    PS>

.. warning::
    We deliberately changed the working directory to the location of the executable. This is because the .NET runtime expects to find the ``CameraSdkCBindingsForCs.dll`` file in the *current working directory*.
    
    If we attempted to run the application from the ``helloworld`` project folder, we would get an exception::
        System.DllNotFoundException: C Bindings DLL (CameraSdkCBindingsForCs.dll) not found at: .\helloworld