Named Pipes Client in MQL4 and Server in C++

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Hi guys,


I have been having difficulty getting named pipes to work. I have been hoping to implement a simple idea really and I wish to use named pipes as I don't feel I need to go as advanced as Sockets and I failed miserably with synchronising shared memory. The idea is to monitor a number of MT4 instances and then when I see a trading signal in the prices then I can try and give my trade a slight edge by picking the best priced broker at that time. I want to use named pipes to pump prices into a central C++ application and then the C++ can pick the highest or lowest price broker.

I started with the MSDN examples of named pipes multithreaded server and client and I tried with the help of this thread to replicate the very basics of the client application. I can't get it to work though and I get garbled text through at the server end. However, depending on some slight changes to code often I get the first character coming through correctly. The MSDN examples are below and below them is a snippet of my code which will hopefully be enough info. Please feel free to ask any further questions if not!

I believe if I could replicate the MSDN client in MQL4 then I would be fine to go on from there but I am struggling to even begin debugging this issue at the moment?

MSDN Multithreaded Server
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...(v=VS.85).aspx

MSDN Client
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...(v=VS.85).aspx

My .mqh:

My associated .mq4:

Code:
#define GENERIC_READ  0x80000000
#define GENERIC_WRITE  0x40000000
#define OPEN_EXISTING  3
int Buffersize = 512;

#import "kernel32.dll"

   int CreateNamedPipe(string pipeName, int openMode, int pipeMode, int maxInstances, int outBufferSize, int inBufferSize, int defaultTimeOut, int security );
   int WaitNamedPipeA( string lpNamedPipeName, int nTimeOut );
   bool PeekNamedPipe( int pipeHandle, int& buffer[], int bufferSize, int& bytesRead[], int& totalBytesAvail[], int& bytesLeftThisMessage[] );
   int CreateFileA( string name, int desiredAccess, int SharedMode, int security, int creation, int flags, int templateFile );
   int WriteFile( int fileHandle, string buffer, int bytes, int& numOfBytes[], int overlapped );
   int ReadFile( int fileHandle, int& buffer[], int bytes, int& numOfBytes[], int overlapped );
   int CloseHandle( int fileHandle );
   int GetError();

#import
Code:
int init()
  {
   
   string Pipename = "\.pipemynamedpipe";
   string Testmessage = "T";
   int hPipe;
   int bytesWritten[1];
   bool bsuccess = false;
   
   hPipe = CreateFileA( 
      Pipename,   // pipe name 
      GENERIC_READ |  // read and write access 
      GENERIC_WRITE, 
      0,              // no sharing 
      NULL,           // default security attributes
      OPEN_EXISTING,  // opens existing pipe 
      0,              // default attributes 
      NULL);          // no template file 
 
   bsuccess = WriteFile( 
      hPipe,                  // pipe handle 
      Testmessage,             // message 
      StringLen(Testmessage)+1,     // message length 
      bytesWritten,             // bytes written 
      NULL);
      
   return(0);
  
  }

The code for my multithreaded server as I have said is as in the MSDN link above.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Mark


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