Is there a way...

Is there a way to create a mixture of a game/chatting interactive program using c++? I have seen it done before, if there is can somebody give me a link to a site that i can learn basics for this. Thanx in advance.

You want to look into network programming. Winsock is the typical API for this.

http://compnetworking.about.com/gi/d...2Fwinsock.html
http://www.madwizard.org/view.php?pa...pter4&lang=cpp


Here's some code I wrote for initializing winsock and established a socket. Once you have init'ed winsock and created a socket you can start sending packets. My code *just* initializes winsock and a socket however.

Code:

---

#include        "SocketHelper.h"

#define        SOCKET_DEBUG        0

#if        SOCKET_DEBUG
#include        <fstream>
#endif


        /*
        http://compnetworking.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fworld.std.com%2F%7Ejimf%2Fpapers%2Fsockets%2Fwinsock.html
        http://www.madwizard.org/view.php?page=tutorials.networking.chapter4&lang=cpp       
        */
       
        /*
        gethostbyname("hostname")                type in "www.yahoo.com" and it returns information about it

        Note  The gethostbyname function has been deprecated by the introduction of the getaddrinfo function.
        Developers creating Windows Sockets 2 applications are urged to use the getaddrinfo function instead of gethostbyname.
        */

        /*
        socket()        --->>>  AF_INET = internetformat
        Creates a socket, first argument is the address family (use internet format), second is the type of socket (use SOCK_STREAM or SOCK_DGRAM,
                the latter stands for datagram, the former means the data will come in as a stream of characters)
        */

        /*
        bind()
        Binds a socket to an address
        */       

/*
        Starts up winsock, returns true if successful, false otherwise
*/
BOOL        Initialize_Winsock()
{
        WSAData        info;
       
        if(WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(1,1),&info) !=        0)
        {
        //        MessageBox(NULL,"Could Not Initiate Winsock 1.1","ERROR",MB_OK|MB_ICONEXCLAMATION);
                return        FALSE;
        }
        else
        {
        //        MessageBox(NULL,"Winsock 1.1 Initiated properly","SUCCESS",MB_OK|MB_ICONINFORMATION);
                return        TRUE;
        }       
}

/*
        Establishes a socket on the computer calling the function on the given port number
*/
int Establish_Socket(unsigned        int        portnumber,SOCKET        *output)
{
        hostent        *myself;
        sockaddr_in        socket_address;        //socket address for internet format
        SOCKET        MySocket;
       
        char        MyName[256];        //Host name of this computer
        memset(MyName,0,sizeof(char)*256);       
       
        gethostname(MyName,sizeof(char)*256);        //Get the host name of this computer
        myself        =        gethostbyname(MyName);                //Then use the host name to get the hostent information

        if(myself        ==        NULL)
        {
        //        MessageBox(NULL,"Establish_Socket::Invalid host information","ERROR",MB_OK);
                return        -1;
        }

        socket_address.sin_family        =        myself->h_addrtype;       
        socket_address.sin_port                =        htons(portnumber);

        //INADDR_ANY means 'use the internet IP of this computer' which makes sense because we are trying to establish the socket on THIS computer
        //The inet_addr function in the example above can convert an IP address in dotted string format to the appropriate 32-bit value in network byte order.
        //There is also a function called inet_ntoa, which does exactly the opposite.
        socket_address.sin_addr.S_un.S_addr = htonl(INADDR_ANY);//inet_addr("127.0.0.1");

        //Create a socket on this computer using internet format (AF_INET) and a type of SOCK_STREAM (data transmitted
        //as a stream of characters)

        MySocket        =        socket(AF_INET,SOCK_STREAM,0);
        if(MySocket == INVALID_SOCKET)
        {
        //        MessageBox(NULL,"Establish_Socket::Failed after call to socket()","ERROR",MB_OK);
                return        -2;
        }
       
        if (bind(MySocket, (struct sockaddr *)&socket_address, sizeof(sockaddr_in)) == SOCKET_ERROR)
        {
        //        MessageBox(NULL,"Establish_Socket::Failed after call to bind()","ERROR",MB_OK);
                closesocket(MySocket);
                return        -3;
        }
       
       
        listen(MySocket,3);                //Listen to 3 connections maximum
        *output        =        MySocket;
        return        1;
}


/*
#if        SOCKET_DEBUG
                int        error = WSAGetLastError();
                std::ofstream        fout("WINSOCKERROR.txt");
                switch(error)
                {
                       
                case        WSANOTINITIALISED :
                        {
                                fout        <<        "WSANOTINITIALISED" << "\n";
                                break;
                        }

                case        WSAENETDOWN:
                        {
                                fout        <<        "WSAENETDOWN: The network subsystem has failed" << "\n";
                                        break;
                        }
                case        WSAEACCES :
                        {
                                fout << "WSAEACCES Attempt to connect datagram socket to broadcast address failed because setsockopt option SO_BROADCAST is not enabled" << "\n";
                                break;
                        }
                       
                case        WSAEADDRINUSE:
                        {
                                fout        <<        "WSAEADDRINUSE A process on the computer is already bound to the same fully-qualified address and the socket has not been marked to allow address reuse with SO_REUSEADDR. For example, the IP address and port are bound in the af_inet case). (See the SO_REUSEADDR socket option under setsockopt" << "\n";
                                break;
                        }

                case        WSAEADDRNOTAVAIL:
                        {       
                                fout << "WSAEADDRNOTAVAIL The specified address is not a valid address for this computer" << "\n";
                                break;
                        }
                case        WSAEFAULT:
                        {
                                fout        <<        "WSAEFAULT The name or namelen parameter is not a valid part of the user address space, the namelen parameter is too small, the name parameter contains an incorrect address format for the associated address family, or the first two bytes of the memory block specified by name does not match the address family associated with the socket descriptor s" << "\n";
                                break;
                        }
                case        WSAEINPROGRESS:
                        {
                                fout        <<        "WSAEINPROGRESS A blocking Windows Sockets 1.1 call is in progress, or the service provider is still processing a callback function" << "\n";
                                break;
                        }

                case        WSAEINVAL:
                        {
                                fout << "WSAEINVAL The socket is already bound to an address" << "\n";
                                break;
                        }

                case        WSAENOBUFS:
                        {
                                fout << "WSAENOBUFS Not enough buffers available, too many connections" << "\n";
                                break;
                        }

                case        WSAENOTSOCK:
                        {
                                fout        <<        "WSAENOTSOCK The descriptor is not a socket" << "\n";
                                break;
                        }

                        fout.close();
                }
#endif
                */

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