Question

Side note: I really could not think of a good title for this.

Ok, I am working on updating a program what was put together by a developer who did not believe in code reuse. SO i have been tasked with the job of updating and making it ‘friendly’ for future changes.

EDIT I should of said: The end users want a command prompt to see each ping. I know that using the built in ping would be a better option, but it is what they want…You guys know how that is /End Edit

I am working with a class that is implemented a couple times through out the program. (formerly there were two classes that basically did the same thing)

I decided to make an interface and implement it on the class.

(Have I lost you yet)

The method really just converts a hostname (one of the method paramaters) to an ipaddress, and spawns a command prompt to ping it. I also have a SEPARATE class that implements the interface and calls the method but instaed of passing a string(hostname) it passes an ipaddress object.

My question lies here: What is best practice when dealing with parameters that can change type? Would someone look over what I have done? It complies fine, i just want to make sure it is best practice.

// Interface that is implement twice in the program 
interface Icmd_Ping
    {
    void initilize_Proc(object target, string last_Octet);

    }


 class process_spawn : Icmd_Ping
{     
    writeLog_Delegate writeLog = new writeLog_Delegate(error_Log.write_log);

    private string ipaddress;
    public object Ipaddress
        {
        get { return ipaddress; }
        set
            {                
            IPAddress ip = value as IPAddress;
            if (ip != null)
                ipaddress = ip.ToString();
            else
                {

                try
                    {
                    formatIP format = new formatIP();
                    ipaddress = format.convert_Ip(((string)value));
                    }
                catch (Exception ex)
                    {
                    writeLog(ex);
                    }
                }   
            }
        }

    public void initilize_Proc(object target, string last_Octet = null)
        {
        if (target == null)
            throw new ArgumentNullException();

        formatIP format_IP = new formatIP();
        this.Ipaddress = target;

        Process cmd = new Process();
        ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo {FileName = "cmd", UseShellExecute = false, RedirectStandardOutput = false };
        cmd.StartInfo = psi;

        if (last_Octet != string.Empty)
            psi.Arguments = string.Format("/c ping {0} -t", format_IP.format_Ip(((string)Ipaddress), last_Octet));
        if (last_Octet == string.Empty)
            psi.Arguments = string.Format("/c ping {0} -t", ((string)Ipaddress));


        cmd.Start();
        }



}

Should I convert the IPaddress in the ipaddress property? Or just make a new method and call that?

Sorry, I know its not very elegant at this point, I just want to make sure I am in the write direction before I really dive into this.

Thank every for your help.

Answer 1

Firstly, I’d suggest using System.Net.IPAddress instead of rolling your own.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.ipaddress.aspx

Secondly, you could use System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping to do the ICMP-Echo
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.networkinformation.ping.aspx

e.g.

        IPAddress ip = IPAddress.Parse("192.168.0.1");
        Ping ping = new Ping();

        for (int i = 0; i < 4; ++i)
        {
            var reply = ping.Send(ip);
            Console.WriteLine("Reply from {0} Status: {1} time:{2}ms", 
                              reply.Address, 
                              reply.Status, 
                              reply.RoundtripTime);
        }