How do I stop my System.Messaging.MessageQueue from wrapping my strings in XML?

Question

I need to communicate with a legacy application from my C# app via the Windows Message Queue.

The legacy application expects plain string messages in a particular private queue, but I can't seem to stop the System.Messaging.MessageQueue from wrapping my message in XML!

The code I'm testing is very simple:

MessageQueue myQueue = new MessageQueue(@".\Private$\tolegacy");
Message msg = new Message("My Test String");
myQueue.Send(msg);

The trouble is that the message is being XML serialized and appears in the queue as:

<?xml version="1.0"?><string>My Test String</string>

I can't modify the behaviour of the legacy application, so I need to stop the System.Messaging.MessageQueue from formatting my message as XML.

Can anyone help?

Answer 1

You can create your own formatter (it is a class that implements IMessageFormatter and assign it to the Formatter property of the Message

Here is a link to MSDN to the Message.Formatter property.

I have not tried this but you should be able to write your message using the BodyStream, I believe this will bypass the formatter.