I am looking for a simple socket interface for C ++ using MS Visual C ++ Express

Question

Is there a dead simple socket interface in C ++ that I could use with MS Visual Studio Express Edition? I know that there is a WinSock library, I assume that I am looking for a wrapper around what is easier to use.

I would consider the java.net library quite simply, however MS VC ++ Express is what I should use. Is there something equivalent?

Answer 1

Check out Boost Asio .

Answer 2

I worked a lot at the socket level, and if this is what you need, then yes Boost :: Asio is fine, if a little confusing.

However, if you just need to deliver data between processes (on the same or different machines), I would go a little further down the glass and look at something like ØMQ ; see how easy it is to get a “message” from another process:

zmq::context_t ctx(1); zmq::socket_t sock(ctx, ZMQ_REQ); sock.connect("tcp://localhost:5555"); zmq::message_t msg; while(sock.recv(&msg)) { std::string s(static_cast<char*>(msg.data()), msg.size()); std::cout << s; } 

Sending is just as easy.

 zmq::context_t ctx(1); zmq::socket_t sock(ctx, ZMQ_REP); sock.bind("tcp://*:5555"); std::string s = "Hello you!"; zmq::message_t msg(s.size()); memcpy(msg.data(), s.data(), s.size()); while(true) { sock.send(msg); sleep(1); } 

ZeroMQ is very lightweight and takes care of connecting, reconnecting, transferring, framing, etc. All you need is your “message” payload, which you want to display on the other side of the pipe (in this case, we just used simple lines).

He also takes care of several more advanced messaging methods, such as pub-sub (multiple receivers of the same messages).