Send message to all multithreaded clients help.

[k80sg]

Given the code, ss there a way to propagate messages send from any of the multithreaded chat client to all the other chat client:

Thanks!

First the main will call startClient:

   Public Sub startClient(ByVal inClientSocket As TcpClient, _
        ByVal clineNo As String)

            'Dim clientCounter As Integer

            Dim arr_inClientSocket(clientCounter) As TcpClient
            arr_inClientSocket(clientCounter) = inClientSocket
            clientCounter += 1

            Me.clientSocket = inClientSocket
            Me.clNo = clineNo

            Dim ctThread As Threading.Thread = New Threading.Thread(AddressOf doChat)
            ctThread.Start()

        End Sub

Private Sub doChat()

            Dim requestCount As Integer
            Dim bytesFrom(10024) As Byte
            Dim dataFromClient As String
            Dim sendBytes As [Byte]()
            Dim serverResponse As String
            Dim rCount As String

            requestCount = 0

            While (True)

                Try

                    requestCount = requestCount + 1

                    Dim networkStream As NetworkStream = _
                    clientSocket.GetStream()

                    networkStream.Read(bytesFrom, 0, CInt(clientSocket.ReceiveBufferSize))

                    dataFromClient = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bytesFrom)

                    dataFromClient = _
                    dataFromClient.Substring(0, dataFromClient.IndexOf("$"))

                    msg("From client-" + clNo + dataFromClient)

                    rCount = Convert.ToString(requestCount)

                    serverResponse = "Server to clinet(" + clNo + ") " + rCount ' Return message to client

                    sendBytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(serverResponse)

                    'I thought I could do something here tosend the message to all chat clients but ain't got an idea how.

                    networkStream.Write(sendBytes, 0, sendBytes.Length)

                    networkStream.Flush()

                    msg(serverResponse)

                Catch ex As Exception

                    MsgBox(ex.ToString)

                End Try

            End While

        End Sub

[jmcilhinney]

I would recommend against creating a new Thread for every client. You can follow the CodeBank link in my signature and check out my Asynchronous TCP post for a better way to do it. You only manage a single thread and make asynchronous calls, letting the system worry about the details. To broadcast a message to all clients you can then use the ThreadPool, e.g.

Private Sub BroadcastMessage(ByVal originatingClient As TcpClient, ByVal message As String)
    For Each client As TcpClient In Me.allClients
        If client IsNot originatingClient Then
            ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(AddressOf SendMessage, New ClientMessage(client, message))
        End If
    Next
End Sub

You'd have to define the ClientMessage type and the SendMessage method appropriately.