Baffled by Structures

[webbiz]

Coming from a VB6 background, I'm trying to get a handle on VS 2010 C#.

Online, I located a file called MSFL.cs that contains structure definitions in a STATIC class container.

One of the struct definitions is the following (partial):

[StructLayout( LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Ansi )]
public static struct MSFLSecurityInfo
{
public static uint dwTotalSize; // Structure size
public static IntPtr hSecurity; // Security handle
[MarshalAs( UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = MSFL_MAX_NAME_LENGTH + 1 )]
public static String szName; // Security name
[MarshalAs( UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = MSFL_MAX_SYMBOL_LENGTH + 1 )]
public static String szSymbol;

. . .


I have a main .cs called MainWindow.xaml.cs (VS created) that I want to create a reference variable of type struct (MSFLSecurityInfo).

First, I tried doing this:

MSFL.MSFLSecurityInfo SecInfo = new MSFL.MSFLSecurityInfo();

Intellisense provided the dropdown lists perfectly indicating that the IDE recognized the existence of the MSFL class and the structure definitions within it.

Then I tried to assign a value to one of the fields in struct SecInfo.

SecInfo.szName = "Some string...";

Intellisense did not detect any members for SecInfo and I was unable to do anything with it.


NEXT:

Knowing that the structure definition is in a STATIC CLASS, I tried the other approach shown below.

MSFL.MSFLSecurityInfo SecInfo;

SecInfo.szName = "Some string...";

This did not work either, and intellisense did not detect struct members for SecInfo.


NEXT I DID THIS:

At the structure definition, I added the STATIC keyword to the structure name as well as the members themselves within the structure definition. Then I tried the above again and it still does not work.


I'M BAFFLED!

I would have thought that creating a structure reference of type structure that is declared in another .cs file would be a breeze.

What am I doing wrong?

I've attached the MSFL.cs file.

Thanks.

Webbiz