How to communicate between a .NET EXE and COM EXE?

Question

I have a .NET EXE and ATL COM EXE in Windows Mobile. I need to communicate between them. I.e my ATL EXE launches the .NET EXE. The .NET EXE should send a message to the ATL EXE that the processing is completed or exited. How can I do that?

How to communicate between the two separate process?

Answer 1

You could use Windows Messages. See this blog post for details.

Answer 2

Edit:

Missed that the question was about mobile. Don't know if this works.

I use an IPC channel with this helper class:

static class IpcChannelManager<T> {
   /// <summary>
   /// Make a type available to other processess
   /// </summary>
   /// <param name="type">
   /// Type to register, must derive from MarshalByRefObject and implement <typeparamref name="T"/>
   /// </param>
   /// <param name="portName">Name of IpcChannel</param>
   public static void RegisterType(Type type, string portName) {
       if (!type.IsSubclassOf(typeof(MarshalByRefObject)))
           throw new ArgumentException("Registered type must derive from MarshalByRefObject");
       Dictionary<string, string> ipcproperties = new Dictionary<string, string>();
       ipcproperties["portName"] = portName;
       // Get the localized name of the "Authenticated users" group
       ipcproperties["authorizedGroup"] = new SecurityIdentifier(WellKnownSidType.AuthenticatedUserSid, null).Translate(typeof(NTAccount)).ToString();

        ChannelServices.RegisterChannel(new IpcServerChannel(ipcproperties, null), false);
        RemotingConfiguration.RegisterWellKnownServiceType(type, typeof(T).Name, WellKnownObjectMode.Singleton);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Get a reference to a remoting object
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="portName">Name of Ipc port</param>
    /// <returns>
    /// Reference to remote server object</returns>
    public static T GetRemoteProxy(string portName) {
        ChannelServices.RegisterChannel(new IpcClientChannel(), false);
        return (T)Activator.GetObject(typeof(T), "ipc://" + portName + "/" + typeof(T).Name);
}

And then I use it like this:

An interface available on both sides

interface IIpcMessage {
    int GetSomeData(string foo);
}

On the receiving end I do

class IpcMessage : MarshalByRefObject, IIpcMessage {
    ...
 }

 IpcChannelManager<IIpcMessage>.RegisterType(typeof(IpcMessage), "Someuniqueportname");

And on the sender end:

 IIpcMessage ipcMessage = IpcChannelManager<IIpcMessage>.GetRemoteProxy("Someuniqueportname");

 int data = ipcMessage.GetSomeDate("blabla");

Answer 3

CreateProcess can return the process handle. All you have to do is WaitForSinbleObject on it, it will be signaled when the .NET process exits.

Answer 4

Use a point to point message queue (see the CreateMsgQueue API).