How can I send strings between two computers? [duplicate]

Question

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Beginner for Delphi Network!

I'd like to learn how to make two machines communicate, sending and receiving simple strings. The machines might be on the same LAN--or not. I'm talking about something more or less like you'd see in a chat program, I suppose. I understand Delphi, but know absolutely nothing about things like TCP, sockets, ports, etc. Where would you suggest I look to learn these things? ... I know how to use google but, honestly, I'm not totally sure even where to start the search!

Thanks, as always.

Answer 1

Delphi has shipped with Indy for several years now as part of the initial install. If you go to the Indy project download page (linked to), you'll find a link for several demo apps, one of which is a chat demo.

You didn't specify which version of Delphi you're using, so the demos may or may not need minor changes. If you can't figure them out, you can post specific questions about the problems here (if they're not here already).

Edit: It seems they've dropped the chat demo in recent versions. There's a full chat application (with code) at Delphi.About that might help (along with several other Indy demos and articles).

Answer 2

for learning how to communicate through sockets the best articles IMO are:

http://www.felix-colibri.com/papers/web/socket_programming/socket_programming.html
http://www.felix-colibri.com/papers/web/delphi_socket_architecture/delphi_socket_architecture.html (it explain you at a socket level how things are going on)

and

http://delphi.about.com/od/networking/l/aa112602a.htm

as a starter for this kind of things I suggest you also http://delphi.about.com which is a very good resource.

After you understand very well the concepts then you can go to next level and use Indy, or any other components which make your life easier.