.NET (Core and Framework)

1. IMO, server need not broadcast it's details. Just start the server and listen on a specific port. Also server should prompt to enter a name for it. This name will be send to clients for displaying. Make sure all your clients know the port which server is using.


2. When each client is starting, it should send a message asking for the server to provide details. UDP is the appropriate protocol for broadcasting such kind of messages. .NET framework has a UdpClient[^] class which can be useful. Your client will broadcast a message something like SERVER_DETAILS. The server program should be able to grab this message and send the servers IP, name and other required details. Receive this details on the client and show the details.
3. Data will be send as bytes always. You need a wrapper to convert the bytes to appropriate data type. There are open-source initiatives like protocol buffers[^] which will allow to send messages by providing type safety. But in reality, for a highly scalable application, designing your own message protocol works well.
   
   Array list can be send after serializing it to bytes. Read about BinaryFormater class.

raineym wrote:

I am going to modify the following code as given here: http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/28253/0/page/2 to do that.

// start file with
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;		// DllImport

// and inside one class, put:

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
public static extern int GetDriveType(string rootPathName);

public void CheckAllDrives() 
    foreach(string deviceLetter in Environment.GetLogicalDrives()) {
        if (GetDriveType(deviceLetter)==5) Console.WriteLine(deviceLetter+" is a CD or DVD drive");
    }
}

' start file with
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices         ' DllImport

' and inside one class, put:

Declare Shared int GetDriveType Lib "kernel32.dll" (ByVal rootPathName As String)

public Sub CheckAllDrives()
    For Each(deviceLetter as String in Environment.GetLogicalDrives())
        if (GetDriveType(deviceLetter) = 5) Console.WriteLine(deviceLetter & " is a CD or DVD drive");
    Next
End Sub

Ryan Minor wrote:

Say you wanted to write an accounting program. The server would run on Windows Server 2008 for example and handle business logic and database access. The client program would have the client forms, etc and obtain data from the server.

Ryan Minor wrote:

Is the server software usually set up as a Windows service normally?

Ryan Minor wrote:

It would listen on certain ports?

Ryan Minor wrote:

How does the server handle multiple concurrent users? I would imagine that after authentication, some sort of thread is created to listen for requests from the user?

I are Troll

cerembeyazit wrote:

I'm writing a application.