NetBridge is a .NET component that enables calling between different .NET environments and processes using gRPC and named pipes. It provides an easy way to achieve process isolation, connecting different versions of .NET Framework and .NET Core (.NET 6+), or calling between different processes within the same .NET environment.
NetBridge is a helpful tool if you are using an older version of .NET and want to migrate parts of your application without migrating everything. It also enables you to isolate code in a process from the rest of your application.
You could also just use the gRPC library from cyanfish directly (mentioned in credits), but NetBridge provides a simple interface to call into a gRPC service.
In order to test the reference application, you need to first install .NET 6.0 or a later version, which can be downloaded from here. However, you can use this project without .NET 6.0.
Here's a brief overview of the projects included in the repository:
FrameworkApplication: A demo application in .NET Framework 4.6.2 that calls a .NET 6 service in ExampleNetLibrary. Contains a post-build event.
ExampleNetLibrary: A library written in .NET 6.
NetBridge.Host: Necessary component for launching the proxy (essentially an executable file). Multi-targetted for both .net 6 and .net framework 4.6.2.
NetBridge.Library: Enables the proxy to call the gRPC server. Multi-targetted for both .net 6 and .net framework 4.6.2.
Included in the repository is an example of a .NET Framework application called "FrameworkApplication" that calls into a gRPC service included in ExampleNetLibrary.
// Load the host process and target assembly
var r = new RemoteCaller<GreeterClient>(assemblyToLoad, typeToLoad);
// Call the method
var resp = r.Call(x => x.SayHelloAsync(new HelloRequest { Name = "World" }));
// Wait for the response
var res = resp.GetAwaiter().GetResult();By running the code, it should output a 'Hello World' response.
To use the gRPC services library with NetBridge, you must include a post-build event that copies the binaries to a sub-directory of the application you intend to run.
if not exist "$(SolutionDir)FrameworkApplication\bin\$(Configuration)\NetBridge" mkdir "$(SolutionDir)FrameworkApplication\bin\$(Configuration)\NetBridge"
xcopy "$(TargetDir)*" "$(SolutionDir)FrameworkApplication\bin\$(Configuration)\NetBridge" /Y
It's also helpful to include other DLL binaries by adding the following to the csproj file:
<CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>true</CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>NetBridge uses the grpc-dotnet-namedpipes library to support gRPC calls over named pipes. You can find more information about grpc-dotnet-namedpipes at https://github.com/cyanfish/grpc-dotnet-namedpipes/