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VB.NET

Send a 4-byte Length Prefix over a Socket

See more Socket/SSL/TLS Examples

Demonstrates Socket.SendCount, which sends a four-byte length prefix in network byte order. This is typically used to tell the peer how many bytes follow.

Background. A length-prefixed framing scheme sends the byte count of a message before the message body, so the receiver knows exactly how many bytes to read with a counted receive.

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VB.NET
Dim success As Boolean = False

Dim socket As New Chilkat.Socket

'  Connect to the server using TLS.
Dim bTls As Boolean = True
Dim maxWaitMs As Integer = 5000
success = socket.Connect("example.com",5000,bTls,maxWaitMs)
If (success = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(socket.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


'  Send a four-byte length prefix in network byte order.  A common framing pattern is to send the
'  number of bytes in a message before the message itself, so the peer knows exactly how many bytes
'  to read.
Dim messageLength As Integer = 512
success = socket.SendCount(messageLength)
If (success = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(socket.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If

Debug.WriteLine("Length prefix sent.")