As you might know, .NET applications by default do not compile down to machine code when you build. They compile down to an intermediate layer, called IL, that looks something like this:

Some recent work has forced me to become significantly more friendly with native library resolution on macOS. I’ve been meaning to write down what’s I’ve learned, and a question on the Xamarin.Mac forum encouraged me to make time.

Today on the forums a user asked about bindings for IOKit. IOKit is very diverse, and currently unbound in Xamarin.Mac. However, since it’s C APIs, it is straightforward to bind by hand.

When a developer hits “Run” on a Xamarin.Mac application, a large number of moving parts engage to provide the “magic” necessary to produce a final application. Understanding where the different components (compiler, class library, runtime, bindings, packaging) all fit…