CharSet Enumeration
Dictates which character set marshaled strings should use.
Namespace: System.Runtime.InteropServices
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
| Member name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| None | This value is obsolete and has the same behavior as CharSet.Ansi. | |
  | Ansi | Marshal strings as multiple-byte character strings. |
 | Unicode | Marshal strings as Unicode 2-byte characters. |
| Auto | Automatically marshal strings appropriately for the target operating system. The default is Unicode on Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and the Windows Server 2003 family; the default is Ansi on Windows 98 and Windows Me. Although the common language runtime default is Auto, languages may override this default. For example, by default C# marks all methods and types as Ansi. |
Because there are several unmanaged string types and only one managed string type, you must use a character set to specify how managed strings should be marshaled to unmanaged code. This enumeration, which provides character set options, is used by DllImportAttribute and StructLayoutAttribute. For a detailed description of the string marshaling and name matching behavior associated with this enumeration, see Specifying a Character Set.
The following code example shows how to specify a CharSet enumeration value when applying the StructLayoutAttribute to a managed definition.
Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows 7, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core Role not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core Role supported with SP1 or later; Itanium not supported)
The .NET Framework does not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.
