Polyglot String Conversion Engine & API

A high-performance system demonstrating a Native C++17 engine seamlessly integrated into a .NET 8 managed ecosystem. This project serves as a blueprint for handling manual memory management across the ABI boundary, implementing extensible Strategy patterns, and maintaining an immutable Docker promotion pipeline from development to production.

System Architecture

This project is an exercise in Cross-Language Interoperability and Architectural Rigor. It solves the challenge of exposing high-performance, unmanaged C++ logic to a modern, managed web stack.

• The Core: A C++17 engine utilizing the Strategy and Factory patterns for extensible string processing.
• The Bridge: A custom C-style ABI wrapper with explicit memory ownership management (allocate/free contract).
• The Gateway: A .NET 8 REST API utilizing Dynamic P/Invoke via NativeLibrary for platform-agnostic service execution.
• The UI: A type-safe React/TypeScript frontend built on Vite for sub-second developer turnaround.
• The DevOps: A multi-stage Docker orchestration supporting Artifact Promotion (Dev → Staging → Prod) to ensure environmental parity.

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Components

1. C++ Conversion Engine

• Implements multiple string conversion strategies.
• Built as a shared library using CMake:
  • Windows → libProcessStringDLL.dll
  • macOS → libProcessStringDLL.dylib
  • Linux → libProcessStringDLL.so

2. .NET REST API Wrapper

• Uses P/Invoke to call the exported C++ DLL functions.
• Provides REST endpoints (e.g., /api/WordCase/convert) for frontend consumption.
• Built and published with dotnet publish.

3. Frontend UI (Vite + React/TypeScript)

• Provides a user interface to input text and select conversion type.
• Calls the .NET REST API endpoints to perform conversions.
• Built with npm run build → outputs static files in dist/.

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Build Pipeline

The project is designed to be built in sequence:

1. Native Layer: Compile the C++ Shared Library.

mkdir -p CaseConversionAPI/CppLib/build
cd CaseConversionAPI/CppLib/build
cmake ..
cmake --build . --config Release

2.Managed Layer: Restore and Publish the .NET API, injecting the native .so/.dll into the publish artifact.

dotnet restore CaseConversionAPI/DotNetAPI
dotnet publish CaseConversionAPI/DotNetAPI -c Release -o ./publish
cp CaseConversionAPI/CppLib/build/libProcessString.* ./publish/

3.Frontend Layer: Build the optimized static assets via Vite.

cd string-conversion-ui
npm install
npm run build

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Integration Layer (C#)

The .NET service calls the DLL:

// Updated for Production Grade Interop
[DllImport("libProcessStringDLL", CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
private static extern IntPtr processStringDLL([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)] string input, int choice);

This enables the REST API to use native C++ performance-critical logic.

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Testing Strategy

• C++: GoogleTest for core logic and edge cases
• .NET: xUnit integration tests validating full request → execution → response flow
• CI: Cross-platform validation (Windows, macOS, Linux)

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Engineering Deep Dive

1. Concurrency & Thread-Safety

In a high-throughput REST environment, thread-safety is paramount. The integration layer has been engineered with the following principles:

• Stateless Execution: The native C++ engine is entirely Stateless. Every call to processStringDLL operates on its own stack and heap allocations, ensuring that the .NET ThreadPool can safely execute concurrent P/Invoke calls.

• Reentrancy: The library is fully reentrant. There are no global variables or shared static states within the conversion logic, eliminating the risk of race conditions or shared-state contention.

• Thread-Safe Marshalling: All data passed across the ABI boundary is deep-copied, ensuring that memory used by one thread is never modified by another.

2. Design Patterns Used (Expanded)

• Strategy Pattern: Encapsulates conversion algorithms, allowing for runtime algorithm selection.

• Factory Pattern: Decouples the client from the specific strategy implementation.

• Client Dispatcher: Manages the lifecycle of the strategy and handles the execution pipeline.

• RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization): Employed in C++ to manage internal resources and in C# via IDisposable to ensure native library handles are released.

Note on Thread-Safety: The native C++ engine is designed to be Stateless and Thread-Safe, allowing the .NET pool to safely execute concurrent P/Invoke calls without shared-state contention.

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Running the System

docker compose up --build

This will start:

• Backend → http://localhost:8080
• Frontend → http://localhost:5173

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Summary

Developed a cross-platform string conversion ecosystem utilizing a high-performance C++17 engine integrated into a .NET 8 microservice via P/Invoke. Engineered a Zero-Leak memory management policy across the ABI boundary and implemented a multi-stage Docker CI/CD pipeline supporting immutable artifact promotion across Dev, Staging, and Production environments.