sending structs over sockets

Question

Hi,

i am using vb.net and i would to send some structs to a C++ tcp server.

The problem is the structs i am sending might contain other structs.

Struct{ uint length; byte really; customStruct customStuff; }FirstStruct;

Struct{ uint length; char[] name; }CustomStruct;

Lets say i want to send FirstStruct over to the C++ Server. How do i go about doing it? Some code examples will be great.

thanks.

Answer 1

Structs can't be sent over sockets, only bytes. You must decide how to convert the structures to a byte stream in the sender, and back to equivalent data structures in the receiver.

Assuming both sides are running Windows*, you can use .NET binary serialization to handle the details. I doubt that supports converting from a VB.NET struct directly to a C struct, but it should be able to construct a reasonable approximation on the receiving end.

* Mono, AFAIK, does not support .NET extensions to C++.

Answer 2

I would serialize my vb structs into something like XML ( or JSON ) and parse them on the server side...