cannot convert char* to object or string?

[darwen]

You can use System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi if your char * is null terminated (i.e. it has a 0 as the last character).

Have a look at this sample code :

byte [] myByte = new byte[] { (byte)'h', (byte)'e', (byte)'l', (byte)'l', (byte)'o', (byte)'\0' };

string result = string.Empty;

unsafe
{
    fixed (byte* xx = &(myByte[0]))
    {
        result = System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.PtrToStringAnsi(new IntPtr(xx));
    }
}

Console.WriteLine(result);

On a different note, a few points on style

(1) I hope you're not 'new'ing the memory for the char * and then returning it. C# has no way of releasing this memory. Returning a pointer to a variable which is released inside your dll is fine.

i.e.

// in dll

// bad ! Don't do anything like this !
char * getNameBad
{
    char *xx = new char[3];
    xx[0] = 'h';
    xx[1] = 'e';
    xx[2] = '\0';

    return xx;
}

// better
std::string myName = "hello";

const char *getNameGood()
{
    return myName.c_str();
}

(2) Don't put the interface code in the UI. You should have a separate class to do this. It should have a method which calls your dll method and returns a .NET string.

Darwen.