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Bruce Axtens
Bruce Axtens

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System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard via ClearScript into JavaScript in C#

It's been an interesting week. One of the successes this week was working out how to connect to System.Windows.Forms and use the clipboard without having to add System.Windows.Forms to the project.

This really only has meaning within the context of ClearScript, but if you want, you can drop by Lychen or LychenBASIC where the code is implemented.

Both Lychen and LychenBASIC have an attach function. This enables one to attach an assembly to the running instance of whatever language you're running on through ClearScript. Attach is exposed to the language engine using

            v8.Script.attach = (Action<string, string>)Attach;
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for Lychen and

            vbscriptEngine
                .Script
                .Attach = (Action<string, string>)Attach;
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for LychenBASIC and is coded as follows:

        private static void Attach(string dllPath, string name = "")
        {
            var htc = new HostTypeCollection();
            try
            {
                //var assem = System.Reflection.Assembly.LoadFrom(dllPath);
                var assem = Assembly.Load(AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(dllPath));
                htc.AddAssembly(assem);
                if (name.Length == 0)
                {
                    name = assem.FullName.Split(',')[0];
                }
                v8.AddHostObject(name, htc);
                Console.WriteLine($"Attached {dllPath} as {name}");

            }
            catch (ReflectionTypeLoadException rtle)
            {
                foreach (var item in rtle.LoaderExceptions)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(item.Message);
                    logger.Error(item.Message);
                }
            }
            catch (FileNotFoundException fnfe)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(fnfe.Message);
                logger.Error(fnfe.Message);
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
                logger.Error(e.Message);
            }
        }
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the logger is an NLog (currently only used in Lychen).

You may remember me grumbling about oddities with Assembly.LoadFrom. Well now we use Assembly.Load(AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(dllPath)) and avoid those problems.

So I currently have a folder on my hard disk containing the nuget package for System.Windows.Forms. I downloaded the package using NuGet as follows:

C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages>nuget install System.Windows.Forms
Feeds used:
  https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json
  C:\Users\bugma\.dotnet\NuGetFallbackFolder
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\NuGetPackages\

Installing package 'System.Windows.Forms' to 'C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages'.
  GET https://api.nuget.org/v3/registration4-gz-semver2/system.windows.forms/index.json
  OK https://api.nuget.org/v3/registration4-gz-semver2/system.windows.forms/index.json 1200ms


Attempting to gather dependency information for package 'System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0' with respect to project 'C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages', targeting 'Any,Version=v0.0'
Gathering dependency information took 27.68 ms
Attempting to resolve dependencies for package 'System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0' with DependencyBehavior 'Lowest'
Resolving dependency information took 0 ms
Resolving actions to install package 'System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0'
Resolved actions to install package 'System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0'
Retrieving package 'System.Windows.Forms 4.0.0' from 'nuget.org'.
  GET https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/system.windows.forms/4.0.0/system.windows.forms.4.0.0.nupkg
  OK https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/system.windows.forms/4.0.0/system.windows.forms.4.0.0.nupkg 965ms
Installing System.Windows.Forms 4.0.0.
Adding package 'System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0' to folder 'C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages'
Added package 'System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0' to folder 'C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages'
Successfully installed 'System.Windows.Forms 4.0.0' to C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages
Executing nuget actions took 2.74 sec

C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages>dir /s/b
C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0
C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0\.signature.p7s
C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0\lib
C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0.nupkg
C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0\lib\System.Windows.Forms.dll
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Now to the demo of System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetText:

C:\>lb /REPL
LychenBASIC: attach "C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0\lib\System.Windows.Forms.dll", "SWFC"
Attached C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0\lib\System.Windows.Forms.dll as SWFC
LychenBASIC: print SWFC
Microsoft.ClearScript.HostTypeCollection
LychenBASIC: print SWFC.System
Microsoft.ClearScript.PropertyBag
LychenBASIC: print SWFC.System.Windows
Microsoft.ClearScript.PropertyBag
LychenBASIC: print SWFC.System.Windows.Forms
Microsoft.ClearScript.PropertyBag
LychenBASIC: print SWFC.System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard
HostType:Clipboard
LychenBASIC: print SWFC.System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetText
HostMethod:SetText
LychenBASIC: print SWFC.System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetText("hello world")
Microsoft.ClearScript.VoidResult
LychenBASIC: hello world
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"hello world" appears after a right-mousebutton click.

And in Lychen (sans all the otherwise useless prints)

C:\>Lychen.exe
Lychen> attach("C:\\Packages\\SystemWindowsFormsPackages\\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0\\lib\\System.Windows.Forms.dll", "SWFC")
Attached C:\Packages\SystemWindowsFormsPackages\System.Windows.Forms.4.0.0.0\lib\System.Windows.Forms.dll as SWFC
Lychen> print(SWFC.System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetText("goodbye world"))
Microsoft.ClearScript.VoidResult
Lychen> goodbye world
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"goodbye world" appearing on right-mouseclick.

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