Receiving a reply

[JaseRandall]

Is h.pipes only for one way communication?

I have set up h.pipes to send a message, pipe.SendAsync("Open window") which makes a window open in another process. Easy to setup and works really well, thank you.

However, I can't see any examples or tests that I could use along the lines of:
var dayOfTheWeek = client.SendAsync("What day is it?")

Then in the server code something like:

string QuestionReceived(string msg)
{
if (msg == "what day is it")
return "Monday"
}

I have previously done something similar with windows remoting but need to send a msg from a .NET 6 64bit process to a .NET 4.8 32bit process so windows remoting is not possible.

I have seen your IPC project which looks like it allows return values but was hoping stick with h.pipes without need to use a common interface. (Although I guess the interface could simply be one function of string Message(string msg); )

Are there any code examples of how to achieve this kind of two way communication with h.pipes or do I need to use h.IPC?

p.s. I'm not very experienced in this space so I may be way off the mark and misunderstanding what pipes are used for.

[HavenDV]

Server.ClientConnected += async (o, args) =>
        {
            Clients.Add(args.Connection.PipeName);
            UpdateClientList();

            AddLine($"{args.Connection.PipeName} connected!");

            try
            {
                await args.Connection.WriteAsync("Welcome! You are now connected to the server.").ConfigureAwait(false);
            }
            catch (Exception exception)
            {
                OnExceptionOccurred(exception);
            }
        };

await Server.WriteAsync(textBoxMessage.Text).ConfigureAwait(false);

https://github.com/HavenDV/H.Pipes/blob/master/src/samples/WindowsFormsApp

[JaseRandall]

Thanks for the reply but that's not quite what I was after. I'm wanting the server to return a value in response to a request from the client rather than broadcast a message from the server. (Like what occurs with a HttpClient.GetAsync() request.)

So, something like this:

    // on the client side
    var dayOfWeek = await Client.WriteAsync("What day is it?").ConfigureAwait(false);
    Console.WriteLine(dayOfWeek.Result);

    // on the server side
    private string MessageReceived(string text)
    {
        return "It's Monday.";
    }

Or do I need to handle it at the class level in the client. So, something like on the client side:

• have a class level properties bool MessageRecevied { get; set; } and string string Response { get; set; }
• send the request and loop while MessageRecevied == false
• receive the request event back and pass it to the Response = receivedMessage property then set MessageRecevied = true

Or have I misunderstood the use case for Named Pipes and should be looking for something else?

[JaseRandall]

I think I worked out the answer to my question... what I need is synchronous communication rather than asynchronous communication and H.Pipes is only for asynchronous communication?

And after having a look at H.Ipc, it contains an example of returning a person object (and synchronous communication using Named Pipes seems is a lot more complex than both asynchronous communication with Named Pipes and Windows Remoting which I had previously used). So, should use H.Ipc instead?

[JaseRandall]

I got my project working with https://github.com/HavenDV/H.Ipc.

Works really well. Thank you Konstantin!!