Author: Dietmar Maurer (dietmar@ximian.com) (C) 2001 Ximian, Inc. Object and VTable layout ======================== The first pointer inside an Object points to a MonoVtable structure. Objects also contains a MonoThreadsSync structure which is used by the mono Thread implementation. typedef struct { MonoVTable *vtable; MonoThreadsSync synchronisation; /* object specific data goes here */ } MonoObject; The MonoVtable contains the vtable, interface offsets and a pointer to static class data. Each object/vtable belongs to exactly one AppDomain. typedef struct { MonoClass *klass; MonoDomain *domain; gpointer *interface_offsets; /* a pointer to static data */ gpointer data; /* the variable sized vtable is included at the end */ gpointer vtable [0]; } MonoVTable; The MonoClass contains domain independent Class infos. typedef struct { /* various class infos */ MonoClass *parent; const char *name; const char *name_space; ... } MonoClass; Calling virtual functions: ========================== Each MonoMethod (if virtual) has an associated slot, which is an index into the VTable. So we can use the following code to compute the address of a virtual function: method_addr = object->vtable->vtable [method->slot]; Calling interface methods: ========================== Each interface class is associated with an unique ID. The following code computes the address of an interface function: method_addr = *(object->vtable->interface_offsets [interface_id] + method->slot*4);