Question

I have a program that currently works as a chat server. It’s a turn based card game with a chat box to communicate with the opponent. The chat stuff all works over the connection, but I’m to the point where I need to start sending certain cards to the opponent, so that when I play a card, my opponent will see it on his screen. I want the client computer to receive the object or collection of objects, figure out what the card type is based on its properties, and then put the card in the correct location. The sending and receiving part is what I don’t understand how to accomplish. From what I’ve read, this requires serialization and I just don’t know where to begin with this. Please assist! I’m using visual studio.

Answer 1

Answering my own question again… I ended up creating a new class called card container which contains the cardType as a string and the card id as a int. There are also other properties for the card container so I know where the card goes. Then I serialized the card container (which is ‘cc’ in the following code) and sent it as follows:

Dim cc as new CardContainer
cc.id = card.id
cc.cardType = card.GetType.ToString
cc.discard = true

Dim bf As New BinaryFormatter
Dim ms As New MemoryStream
Dim b() As Byte

'serializes to the created memory stream
bf.Serialize(ms, cc)
'converts the memory stream to the byte array
b = ms.ToArray()
ms.Close()

'sends the byte array to client or host
SyncLock mobjClient.GetStream
    mobjClient.GetStream.Write(b, 0, b.Length)
End SyncLock

The client listens on its TCPClient for anything at all and picks up the card with the following code:

    Dim intCount As Integer

    Try
        SyncLock mobjClient.GetStream
            'returns the number of bytes to know how many to read
            intCount = mobjClient.GetStream.EndRead(ar)
        End SyncLock
        'if no bytes then we are disconnected
        If intCount < 1 Then
            MarkAsDisconnected()
            Exit Sub
        End If

        Dim bf As New BinaryFormatter
        Dim cc As New CardContainer
        'moves the byte array found in arData to the memory stream
        Dim ms As New MemoryStream(arData)

        'cuts off the byte array in the memory stream after all the received data
        ms.SetLength(intCount)
        'the new cardContainer will now be just like the sent one
        cc = bf.Deserialize(ms)
        ms.Close()

        'starts the listener again
        mobjClient.GetStream.BeginRead(arData, 0, 3145728, AddressOf DoRead, Nothing)

Depending on what data the cardcontainer has determines which method the client now calls. For example, when this is received, the created cc is passed to my CardReceived method which then has a bunch of if, elseif statements. One of those would be

ElseIf cc.discard = true then
'makes a new card from the id and cardType properties
dim temp as new object = MakeCard
'discard method will find the correct card in the Host's known hand and discard it to the correct pile
Discard(temp)