named-pipe-wrapper's Introduction

Named Pipe Wrapper for .NET 4.0

A simple, easy to use, strongly-typed wrapper around .NET named pipes.

NuGet Package

Available as a NuGet package.

Features

Create named pipe servers that can handle multiple client connections simultaneously.
Send strongly-typed messages between clients and servers: any serializable .NET object can be sent over a pipe and will be automatically serialized/deserialized, including cyclical references and complex object graphs.
Messages are sent and received asynchronously on a separate background thread and marshalled back to the calling thread (typically the UI).
Supports large messages - up to 300 MiB.

Requirements

Requires .NET 4.0 full.

Usage

Server:

var server = new NamedPipeServer<SomeClass>("MyServerPipe");

server.ClientConnected += delegate(NamedPipeConnection<SomeClass> conn)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Client {0} is now connected!", conn.Id);
        conn.PushMessage(new SomeClass { Text: "Welcome!" });
    };

server.ClientMessage += delegate(NamedPipeConnection<SomeClass> conn, SomeClass message)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Client {0} says: {1}", conn.Id, message.Text);
    };

// Start up the server asynchronously and begin listening for connections.
// This method will return immediately while the server runs in a separate background thread.
server.Start();

// ...

Client:

var client = new NamedPipeClient<SomeClass>("MyServerPipe");

client.ServerMessage += delegate(NamedPipeConnection<SomeClass> conn, SomeClass message)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Server says: {0}", message.Text);
    };

// Start up the client asynchronously and connect to the specified server pipe.
// This method will return immediately while the client runs in a separate background thread.
client.Start();

// ...