Question

Ok, so i have got myself completely stuck. My search skill are lacking and I cant find anything that makes me see what I need to do.

What I have is a Telnet App. Form1 connects and preforms the socket stuff though a class. The class is refernced on form one like so

//form1
telnet tc;

private void connect_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  tc = new telnet (IP, Port);
}

What I am trying to do is use this same method on form2. form2 is a configuration window and requires getting data from the telnet server to save to an xml file. via

 //form 1
 tc.read();

I could call a new instance of the telnet class but that would be a waste of resources and I think there’s a better way to code it.

So what I would like to know is, while in form2. How do I tell a button click event to access tc from form1?

So far I haven’t been able to figure out how to get the reference of form1 tc, or the connect_click button onto form 2.

 //form2
 private void read_click(object sender, EventArgs e)
 {
   tc.read();  // how do i call it? or even call a method of form 1 to button click?
   ... write data from tc.read()
  }

Answer 1

One option is to create a singleton object that owns communications.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff650316.aspx

So, if you had something like:

public class Communicator
{
    Telnet m_telnet;

    private static Communicator instance;

    private Communicator() {m_telnet = new Telnet()}

    public static Communicator Instance
    {
        get {
            if (instance == null) {
                instance = new Communicator();
         }
         return instance;
     }

     public string DoSomething()
     {
         return m_telnet.DoSomething();
     }
   }
}

Then, in your form functions you could just:

Communicator.Instance.DoSomething();

Since different forms are accessing this object, shouldn’t need to be thread safe. If it does, then you can use a double lock pattern.