Sometimes you need a project to be split into two programs but still pass data between eachother. A normal way of doing this would be with a webserver, like a WCF service.
There is however a simpler way of achieving this functionality, using a windows preinstalled component called MSMQ.
MSMQ is a message queue system. An application can push messages to a queue and another application can read them out. MSMQ also has the advantage of keeping queue messages even if a client goes offline. The messages can then be retrieved the next time the client comes online.
The code:
This first code snippet initializes the queue:
public static MessageQueue mq;
private void btnInitQueue_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Create queue or connect to an existing queue
if (MessageQueue.Exists(@".\Private$\MyQueue"))
{
mq = new MessageQueue(@".\Private$\MyQueue");
}
else
{
mq = MessageQueue.Create(@".\Private$\MyQueue");
}
}
This next snippet adds a string message to the queue:
private void btnSendMessage_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// This adds a message to the queue
System.Messaging.Message mm = new System.Messaging.Message();
mm.Body = textBox1.Text;
mq.Send(mm);
}
And this last snippet is used to read out the messages from the queue:
private void btnReadOutMessages_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// This retrieves all messages in the queue, processes them and deletes them
System.Messaging.Message[] messages = mq.GetAllMessages();
foreach (System.Messaging.Message m in messages)
{
// Need to read the messages with a formatter
m.Formatter = new XmlMessageFormatter(new String[] { "System.String,mscorlib" });
richTextBox1.AppendText(m.Body.ToString());
}
mq.Purge();
}
Notice we need to apply a formatter when reading data out from the queue.
