NET SEND alternative

[Eddy Van Esch]

hi all,
i've placed a little program on the source code forum: http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...ad.php?t=23138

it is an alternative to the net send dos-command.
it allows you to send messages to people who's pc has access
to a certain common (network)directory.
the messages you send to someone 'immediately' pop up on its pc's
screen. you can hide the program so it does not occupy any space
on the taskbar, but it still continues its task.

it's important in this source code to set '$networkdrive' to the
right networkdrive which every user of this program must have access to
(read/write) .
kind regards
eddy


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[email protected]

[Frederic Faure]

Thanks for the tip. A much better way is to perform the exact same function that "net send" but programmatically, ie. open a mailslot on the receiving end and launch a timer, open a filehandle to the remote host from the sending side, let the timer check for incoming msgs on the receiving end and display any msg. I'm not through writing all the features that I wanted, so didn't upload the code yet, but here's the meat of the program:

'Listening application ---------------

	Call SetTimer(hDlg, BYVAL &H0000FEED, 1000, BYVAL %NULL)

      'Listen for incoming msgs
	lMailSlotHdl = CreateMailslot ("\\.\mailslot\messngr",0&, %MAILSLOT_WAIT_FOREVER, BYVAL %NULL)

      'Let the timer check for the msg queue every second
      Case %WM_TIMER
		LOCAL lCharsToRead AS LONG, sFrom AS String
		LOCAL sRaw AS String
				
		lResult = GetMailslotInfo (lMailSlotHdl,BYVAL %NULL, lSizeText,lMsgCount, BYVAL %NULL )
			
		lCharsToRead = lSizeText
		If (lCharsToRead > 0) Then
			sRaw = ReadMailSlot (lCharsToRead)
			sFrom = PARSE$(sRaw, "$)B",1)
			sMsg= PARSE$(sRaw, "$)B",3)
			CONTROL SET TEXT CBHNDL, %IDC_EDIT, sMsg
		End If

	'ReadMailSlot
	pMyAdd = VARPTR(sGr)
	lResult = ReadFile (lMailSlotHdl, sGr,lToRead,lToRead,BYVAL %NULL)

	For iIndex = 0 to lToRead - 1
		If PEEK$(pMyAdd + iIndex,1) = chr$(0) Then
			sText= sText+ "$)B"
		Else
			sText = sText + PEEK$(pMyAdd + iIndex,1)
		End If
	Next iIndex
	ReadMailSlot = sText


	lResult = CloseHandle(lMailSlotHdl)

	KillTimer hDlg, &H0000FEED

'Sending application ----------------------
	lFileHdl = CreateFile ("\\" + sTo + "\mailslot\messngr",%GENERIC_WRITE, %FILE_SHARE_READ, BYVAL %NULL,%OPEN_EXISTING, _

	lCharactersSent = (Len(sFrom) + 1) + (Len(sTo) + 1) + Len(sText)
	sText = sFrom + chr$(0) + sTo + chr$(0) + sText
	lResult = WriteFile (lFileHdl, sText, lCharactersSent, lCharactersSent, BYVAL %NULL)

My ¥.2
FF.

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[Matthew Berg]

also see net send in win9x.

[Frederic Faure]

Incidently, I have found using "net send" or NetMessageBufferSend to be slower than going for mailslots directly. It's not a name resolution issue (WINS installed; local master browser OK;net view works fine), so have no idea why that API sometimes waits for about 10s before actually sending the message. The issue went away since using mailslots programmatically.

FF.

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[Eddy Van Esch]

Frederic,
Nice that you have found another NET SEND alternative.
Personally, I had never heard of mailslots, so I solved my problem with the
knowledge I had...
Kind regards
Eddy



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[Frederic Faure]

Started the same way, but looked into mailslots because of that 10s delay.

Mailslots are the way the "net send" or WinPopup send messages. Using mailslots is not any different from using the above or the NetMessageBufferSend() API. Do remember that the Net*() APIs use Unicode strings.

More infos on mailslots: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...lslot_7gj7.asp

FF.

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[Eddy Van Esch]

Frederic,
thanks for the info!
Eddy

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