External Communication Launcher tutorial

In this tutorial, we will learn about using the launcher with a C# executable. In this tutorial, we will reuse our code from the External Communication CSharp tutorial, but launch the C# executable through the framework.

Overview

We will only have to add and configure the launcher property for our External Communication module.

XML configuration

Applications configuration

The applications configuration is identical than from the External Communication CSharp tutorial.

Network configuration

The network configuration for the External Communication is identical than from the External Communication CSharp tutorial:

      <network>
         <channel name="event" type="input" port="8080" >
            <service name="published" />
         </channel>  
         <channel name="publish" type="output" port="8081">
            <service name="event" />     
         </channel>
      </network>

Framework properties

We add the launcher property in the properties configuration:

      <properties>
         <application name="externalComm" >
            <module name="externalComm" >
               <moduleProperty key="network" value="network.xml" />      
               <moduleProperty key="endianness" value="littleEndian" />		
               <moduleProperty key="charAs8Bits" value="true" />		
      <moduleProperty key="launcher" value="launcher.xml" />			 
            </module>
         </application>
      </properties>

Launcher configuration

The launcher configuration will be:

      <launcher>
         <executable path="PublishAppli.exe" redirectIO="true" wait="500ms"> 
            <portArgument key="input" channel="event" />
            <portArgument key="output" channel="publish" />
         </executable>
      </launcher>

This configuration will call the PublishAppli.exe executable with the following arguments:

      PublishAppli.exe input=8080 output=8081

Note that in our example we will start directly the target through the launcher property. If the C# code is integrated into Unity, we might have to start the application independantly from teh framework, without using the launcher property.

Filelist configuration

Thel filelist configuration is identical from the one specified in the External Communication CSharp tutorial.

Usage

You only have to start the framework using the filelist configuration. The framework will take care of launching the PublishAppli.exe executable.