Direct read of FS tokens via FSUIPC and FDSConnection

[hsors]

Pete,

In a previous message you made an allusion to FDSConnection..I had a look to this FSUIPC "clone" and I must say that, as regard FS variables access, FDSConnection is not yet appealing but I'm pretty sure it will improve..a few designers already use it for simple apllications :roll:

I understood FDSConnection was able to directly access all FS tokens by their names (tokens.h table) although I didn't test it. I know you already mapped most FS tokens in 1st table but not all of them..Moreover, I'm not sure FSlook and FSlook2 use FSUIPC.

My questions are:

1) How does FSlook(1-2) access FS tokens?

2) Do you think FSUIPC could, in the future, provide such a possibility?

3) What is your feeling about the freeware FDSConnection module that shares most of its code and offsets with FSUIPC (not taking into consideration all the extra settings FSUIPC added)?

Please feel free not to answer the 3rd question if you wish :wink:

Hervé

[Pete Dowson]

1) How does FSlook(1-2) access FS tokens?

The original FSLook works, on the FS PC only, via a special, very inefficient and otherwise unsupported "fiddle" in FSUIPC. I did this only to help Gauge programmers, in the early days.

FSLook2 is merely using the normal FS offsets, those from the 2nd table in the Programmers' Guide. Anyone can do that. In that sense it is a variation on FSInterrogate.

2) Do you think FSUIPC could, in the future, provide such a possibility?

No, because it is far more efficient to do it via the offset mapping method, and this provides far more opportunities to get desired data. Furthermore the offset method works with WideFs. There's no way any token reading is ever going to be efficient on a Network the way that WideFS is.

3) What is your feeling about the freeware FDSConnection module that shares most of its code and offsets with FSUIPC (not taking into consideration all the extra settings FSUIPC added)?

I don't think any of FDSConnections actual code is from FSUIPC. You presumably mean the code to interface to it? That is a published interface. It isn't the most efficient way to do it, but it is used because it was used by so many programs on FS95 and FS98, with FSUIPC's predecessors. There's nothing wrong with other programs supporting the same interface.

I hope that the competition is so good by the time FS2006 comes out that I can retire from all this and get on with something else, so ...good luck to them! :)

Regards,

Pete