Communicating via Ethernet between Concerto and .NET C# Program

hi Don,

I've been on the same place you're now. I had to fight for literally WEEKS for having my Concerto F28M35H52C1 to communicate over the ethernet on a standard that I wanted my code to run.

To just to run the example as it is, I'm assuming you're not having much problems. You flash it, type in your browser (I hope you use Chrome or Firefox) the IP address you set and voilá... a nice webpage comes up. Now you want to send individual messages from your C# GUI to it. That is EXACTLY what I've been through, so let me give you some hints on what I've learned:

- Do not try to mess with the the DMA stuff of the example, just keep using it.

- the file you want to change is: httpd.c. That code is actually handling the communication. On my code I eventually changed to ethernet_handler.c because it's not a HTTP protocol at all, but don't do that for now, it complicates some stuff with the config file 'uip-conf'.

- On this thread I started http://e2e.ti.com/support/microcontrollers/tms320c2000_32-bit_real-time_mcus/f/171/t/180339.aspx you can follow some problems I had on trying to change the linker file and messing up the ethernet, might be useful reading

- Below is a (hopefully useful) snippet of my ethernet_handler.c, specifically the void EthernetAppCall(void) (in the example is called void httpd_appcall(void).

#define BUF_CHAR ((char *)uip_appdata) // <<< this is defined just to avoid compiler warnings

void EthernetAppCall(void) {

	switch (uip_conn->lport) {

	case HTONS(TCP_PORT_NUMBER): {

		if (uip_connected()) {
			// If just connect, just return and wait for the message
			return;
		} else if (uip_poll()) {
			// I don't think this will ever happen, but it's no problem
			return;
		} else if (uip_newdata()) {
			// If we have actual useful data coming, parse it and answer accordingly

			// Check if its a 'Hello World' test message // Delete this code before final release
			if (BUF_APPDATA[0] == 'x') {
				uip_send("Hello world!", sizeof("Hello world!"));
			} else {
				
				
				/*
				this part of the code i'm using the #include "utils/cmdline.h" to process the commands coming from my VB.net
				
				// Try parse the message
				int response = COMMS_parse_message(BUF_CHAR);  <<< wrapper to the cmdline.h
				
				than depending on the value of response I can:
					uip_send() <<< send a message back
					uip_abort() <<< abort if it's crap
				
				*/
				
			}
		}

		else if (uip_acked()) {
			// If it's an acknowledge, just close the connection
			uip_close();
		}
		return;
	}

	default: {
		// Should never happen, unless someone else is trying to communicate with my MY board
		uip_abort();
		break;
	}
	}
}

after a bit I was while to clear out all the little functions that was being used by the javascripts on the webpage, and to send the parts of the webpage, but for now I would try to to change the minimum as possible until it works. Than you can start clean the code.

in case you're interested here is my VB.net code for a form with a button, 3 input fields and a listbox, it's a very basic and dumb code as I'm still testing it out how this interface will happen, but it's operational.

Imports System.Net
Imports System.Net.Sockets

Public Class Form1

    Dim conn As TcpClient = Nothing


    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click


        Me.Cursor = Cursors.WaitCursor

        Dim address As IPAddress = IPAddress.Parse(ipbox.Text.Replace(" ", ""))
        Dim port As Int32 = Integer.Parse(portBox.Text.Replace(" ", ""))

        Try
            conn = New TcpClient(ipbox.Text.Replace(" ", ""), port)

            ' Get the message from the box, translate it into ASCII and store it as a Byte array.
            Dim data As [Byte]() = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(messageBox.Text)

            ' Get a client stream for reading and writing.
            ' Stream stream = client.GetStream();
            Dim stream As NetworkStream = conn.GetStream()

            ' Send the message to the connected TcpServer. 
            stream.Write(data, 0, data.Length)

            logit(messageBox.Text)

            ' Receive the TcpServer.response.
            ' Buffer to store the response bytes.
            data = New [Byte](256) {}

            ' String to store the response ASCII representation.
            Dim responseData As [String] = [String].Empty

            ' Read the first batch of the TcpServer response bytes.
            Dim count As Int32 = stream.Read(data, 0, data.Length)
            responseData = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(data, 0, count)

            logit(responseData)

            stream.Close()
            conn.Close()

        Catch ex As Exception
            logit("Error: " + ex.Message)

        End Try


        Me.Cursor = Cursors.Default

    End Sub

    Private Sub logit(ByVal message As String)

        Dim hr As String = DateTime.Now.Hour.ToString() + ":" + DateTime.Now.Minute.ToString() + ":" + DateTime.Now.Second.ToString() + " - "
        logList.Items.Insert(0, hr + message)
        logList.Refresh()

    End Sub

    Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
        logList.Items.Clear()
    End Sub

Hope it helps, happy coding!