hbe02

hi all,
im trying to get 2 programs to communicate with each other. First thing that came to my mind is through some virtual serial port. Would that work? can i open com20 on program 1 and com20 on program 2 and simply say read write ? i would also think that windows would not allow 2 programs to open the same COM port..
thanks :-D

kruptof

How about using files(e.g. xml,db..etc) or the network.

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hbe02

hey thats a good idea. i can open 2 sockets each on the same port connecting to localhost.
but this must raise some issues with security. but i guess it could be resolved by simply blocking the port your using on the firewall.

Jimbo

Any means of communication will have it's own security ramifications. Files are workable, but possibly less efficient (you need to somehow have a semaphore so they don't write at the same time, etc...). Sockets or named pipes would probably suit you fine, assuming you secure them properly.

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lectricpharaoh

Sockets would probably be the simplest solution, but another option would be to create a .DLL that mediated communication between two or more programs. Yet another solution is to dispatch messages from one program to another; these will be received and processed in the main message loop. I'm not sure how viable this is for managed code, though it's certainly possible.

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hbe02

Thanks everyone, After giving it some thought, using sockets to comunicate is the best solution.
This also gives me already set-up platform to expand my project from inter-program into a networked program communicating 2 different pc's on a network. its all good. cheers!