mono/docs/sources/mono-api-embedding.html

<h2>Embedding Mono</h2>

<h4><a name="api:mono_jit_init">mono_jit_init</a></h4>
<h4><a name="api:mono_set_dirs">mono_set_dirs</a></h4>
<h4><a name="api:mono_runtime_exec_main">mono_runtime_exec_main</a></h4>
<h4><a name="api:mono_runtime_exec_managed_code">mono_runtime_exec_managed_code</a></h4>

<h4><a name="api:mono_jit_cleanup">mono_jit_cleanup</a></h4>
<h4><a name="api:mono_set_defaults">mono_set_defaults</a></h4>

<h3>Internal Calls</h3>

	<p>The Mono runtime provides two mechanisms to expose C code
	to the CIL universe: internal calls and native C
	code. Internal calls are tightly integrated with the runtime,
	and have the least overhead, as they use the same data types
	that the runtime uses.

	<p>The other option is to use the Platform Invoke (P/Invoke)
	to call C code from the CIL universe, using the standard
	P/Invoke mechanisms.

	<p>To register an internal call, use this call you use the
	<tt>mono_add_internal_call</tt> routine.

<h4>Data Marshalling</h4>

	<p>Managed objects are represented as <tt>MonoObject*</tt>
	types.  Those objects that the runtime consumes directly have
	more specific C definitions (for example strings are of type
	<tt>MonoString *</tt>, delegates are of type
	<tt>MonoDelegate*</tt> but they are still <tt>MonoObject
	*</tt>s).

	<p>As of Mono 1.2.x types defined in mscorlib.dll do not have
	their fields reordered in any way.   But other libraries might
	have their fields reordered.   In these cases, Managed
	structures and objects have the same layout in the C# code as
	they do in the unmanaged world.

	<p>Structures defined outside corlib must have a specific
	StructLayout definition, and have it set as sequential if you
	plan on accessing these fields directly from C code.

	<p><b>Important</B> Internal calls do not provide support for
	marshalling structures.  This means that any API calls that
	take a structure (excluding the system types like int32,
	int64, etc) must be passed as a pointer, in C# this means
	passing the value as a "ref" or "out" parameter.

<h4><a name="api:mono_add_internal_call">mono_add_internal_call</a></h4>

<h3>Mono Runtime Configuration</h3>

	<p>Certain features of the Mono runtime, like DLL mapping, are
	available through a configuration file that is loaded at
	runtime.   The default Mono implementation loads the
	configuration file from <tt>$sysconfig/mono/config</tt>
	(typically this is <tt>/etc/mono/config</tt>).

	<p>See the <tt>mono-config(5)</tt> man page for more details
	on what goes in this file.

	<p>The following APIs expose this functionality:
	
<h4><a name="api:mono_config_parse">mono_config_parse</a></h4>
<h4><a name="api:mono_config_parse_memory">mono_config_parse_memory</a></h4>

<h3>Function Pointers</h3>

	<p>To wrap a function pointer into something that the Mono
	runtime can consume, you should use the mono_create_ftnptr.
	This is only important if you plan on running on the IA64
	architecture.   Otherwise you can just use the function
	pointer address.
	
<h4><a name="api:mono_create_ftnptr">mono_create_ftnptr</a></h4>