Re: xPLLib v3.0 Public Beta

[Tom Van den Panhuyzen <tomvdp@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 09:52:00 -0000, Mal Lansell <mlansell@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
> A few questions:
>
> 1) Tom said earlier "If a user has xpl windows applications and
no xpl
> services then it is of course better to have a dedicated hub". 
Why?  If the
> hub can transfer, then any running app can provide the hub functions.

If you know beforehand the user will be switching xpl apps on and off
and each will in fact start/stop a hub, then it is perhaps better to
just provide the hub as a seperate service that is always available.
In theory this is not necessary.

>
> 2) Windows Services only run on Win2k and WinXP, right?  So for Win98
&
> WinME we have to also release the hub as an application (I assume we
support
> these OSes?)
>
> 3) If I were to write a hub (with no .NET framework needed) - I'd need
to
> know everything it does!  Is it just a case of broadcasting everything
it
> receives, or does it read and act on the message target fields?  Does
it
> send it's own heartbeats and config?

How the hub functions in a nutshell:
- loads clients on startup (the xpl apps it serves)
- listens on 3865
- checks whether to accept from the source [V3]
- checks incoming msgs to be valid xpl msgs
- if it receives a HBEAT from a local IP, then stores the port nr in
the clients list
- broadcasts incoming msgs to all clients on the list
- tracks HBEAT.END and expired clients
- saves the clients when shutting down

It doesn't send HBEAT items itself or doesn't listen to config items for
itself.

Regards,
Tom