How to zero out memory allocated by Marshal.AllocHGlobal?

Question

I am allocating some unmanaged memory in my application via Marshal.AllocHGlobal. I'm then copying a set of bytes to this location and converting the resulting segment of memory to a struct before freeing the memory again via Marshal.FreeHGlobal.

Here's the method:

public static T Deserialize<T>(byte[] messageBytes, int start, int length)
    where T : struct
{
    if (start + length > messageBytes.Length)
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException();

    int typeSize = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(T));
    int bytesToCopy = Math.Min(typeSize, length);

    IntPtr targetBytes = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(typeSize);
    Marshal.Copy(messageBytes, start, targetBytes, bytesToCopy);

    if (length < typeSize)
    {
        // Zero out additional bytes at the end of the struct
    }

    T item = (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(targetBytes, typeof(T));
    Marshal.FreeHGlobal(targetBytes);
    return item;
}

This works for the most part, however if I have fewer bytes than the size of the struct requires, then 'random' values are assigned to the last fields (I am using LayoutKind.Sequential on the target struct). I'd like to zero out these hanging fields as efficiently as possible.

For context, this code is deserializing high-frequency multicast messages sent from C++ on Linux.

Here is a failing test case:

// Give only one byte, which is too few for the struct
var s3 = MessageSerializer.Deserialize<S3>(new[] { (byte)0x21 });
Assert.AreEqual(0x21, s3.Byte);
Assert.AreEqual(0x0000, s3.Int); // hanging field should be zero, but isn't

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, Pack = 1)]
private struct S3
{
    public byte Byte;
    public int Int;
}

Running this test repeatedly causes the second assert to fail with a different value each time.

---

EDIT

In the end, I used leppie's suggestion of going unsafe and using stackalloc. This allocated a byte array that was zeroed as needed, and improved throughput from between 50% and 100%, depending upon the message size (larger messages saw greater benefit).

The final method ended up resembling:

public static T Deserialize<T>(byte[] messageBytes, int startIndex, int length)
    where T : struct
{
    if (length <= 0)
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("length", length, "Must be greater than zero.");
    if (startIndex < 0)
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("startIndex", startIndex, "Must be greater than or equal to zero.");
    if (startIndex + length > messageBytes.Length)
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("length", length, "startIndex + length must be <= messageBytes.Length");

    int typeSize = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(T));
    unsafe
    {
        byte* basePtr = stackalloc byte[typeSize];
        byte* b = basePtr;
        int end = startIndex + Math.Min(length, typeSize);
        for (int srcPos = startIndex; srcPos < end; srcPos++)
            *b++ = messageBytes[srcPos];
        return (T)Marshal.PtrToStructure(new IntPtr(basePtr), typeof(T));
    }   
}

Unfortunately this still requires a call to Marshal.PtrToStructure to convert the bytes into the target type.

Answer 1

I've never done this stuff in C# before, but I found Marshal.WriteByte(IntPtr, Int32, Byte) in MSDN. Try that out.

Answer 2

Why not just check whether start + length is within typesize?

BTW: I would just go unsafe here and use a for loop to to zero out the additional memory.

That too will give you the benefit of using stackalloc which is much safer and faster than AllocGlobal.

Answer 3

Yes as Jon Seigel said, you can zero it out using Marshal.WriteByte

In the following example, I zero out the buffer before copying the struct.

if (start + length > messageBytes.Length) 
    throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException();   
int typeSize = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(T));    
int bytesToCopy = Math.Min(typeSize, length);   
IntPtr targetBytes = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(typeSize);  
//zero out buffer
for(int i=0; i < typeSize; i++)
{
    Marshal.WriteByte(targetBytes, i, 0);
}
Marshal.Copy(messageBytes, start, targetBytes, bytesToCopy);

Answer 4

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern void RtlZeroMemory(IntPtr dst, int length);
...
RtlZeroMemory(targetBytes, typeSize);