lpdclient Development

lpdclient started life as a console application written in C using standard libc function calls.

C STDLIB Console Version 1.0x

See my C development pages for more details of C libc application development for EPOC.

The C source code is available to browse here.

The console application had a number of drawbacks. These were:

• The C console is not fully integrated into the EPOC environment and does not respond to system signals - crucially Close. It has to be killed if you want to stop it independently of the running application.
• The Symbian implementation of the libc networking functions does not support a timeout. This means the program will hang if no response is received from the connected network host.

C++ E32BASE Console Version 1.2 (current version).

See my C++ development pages for more details of C++ console application development for EPOC.

The C++ version is an improvement on the original C version. The source code is available to browse here.

The improved program is implemented as a fully asynchronous state machine which promptly responds to keystrokes at all times and provides time-outs for all network operations. This is enabled by the following features of the C++ EPOC E32BASE classes.

The console provided is more sophisticated then its C STDLIB counterpart. The CConsoleBase class provides:

• An asynchronous keyboard reading interface.
• Response to the system Close signal.
• A method to allow the setting of the window title.

The RSocket and RHostResolver networking classes support asynchronous calls.

State Diagram

Data Flow Diagram