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I have a computer running Visual Basic 2005.

What is the best way to talk to other devices that use TCP in my network. These devices are Barcode scanners and Cameras. I need to send/receive messages to these devices in no particular sequence/order/timing. Right now we are using TcpListener, it works, but I'd like to make it more of a function that I can just pass the ip, port, and text to send rather than the method we use right now which is a bit more edit intensive.

My second related question is, what is the best way to monitor the communications with these devices to ensure my network is still healthy? Right now we use Ping commands.

edit: As I understand it all Visual Basic 2005 is .NET the .NET was just dropped because all VB from 2005 on is VB.NET?

Thanks
Posted
Updated 2-Jan-12 3:34am
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Comments
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 23-Dec-11 15:09pm    
VB or VB.NET? Please tag it properly.
--SA

1 solution

My first advice is: don't use any asynchronous APIs if a synchronous API is available. Yes, it will need blocking calls, but you place it in a separate thread. I think asynchronous APIs used to make some sense (still questionable) when threads were not a commonplace, but these days threads are much more straightforward way of doing things, more reliable and supportable.

I provided a sketch of network service architecture based on fixed number of threads, please see my past answers:
Multple clients from same port Number[^],
automatic updater triggered via server[^].

Networking can be done on few different levels. I provided my overview in these past answers:
how i can send byte[] to other pc[^],
Communication b/w two Windows applications on LAN.[^].

—SA
 
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Comments
RaviRanjanKr 23-Dec-11 15:26pm    
My 5+
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 23-Dec-11 15:39pm    
Thank you, Ravi.
--SA
Monjurul Habib 23-Dec-11 15:38pm    
5!
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 23-Dec-11 15:39pm    
Thank you, Monjurul.
--SA

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