I am trying to write a program that interfaces with a BlackBerry device plugged in via USB (utilizing the Desktop Manager API). The only exampes I can find for doing this are in C++, but I only know how to write/interpret VB .NET (I'm a novice, really), so I decided the easiest way to do this would be to just pass a string to and from the device.
To accomplish this, I thought the easiest thing to do would be to adapt the sample C++ application that comes with the BlackBerry JDE (which demonstrates passing a string to an app on the device using the DM API) to a MFC DLL which I would then call from my VB .NET app.
The main problem I am having is figuring out how to accept or return a string between the DLL and the VB .NET app. Every time I try to pass a string it gives me an error. Research has lead me to understand that this is because of "incompatibility" between the string types of the C++ std::string and the VB .NET String variable types.
Here is my code:
C++
// InterfaceStack.cpp : Defines the initialization routines for the DLL.
//
#include "stdafx.h"
#include "InterfaceStack.h"
#include <string>
#include <cstring>
#ifdef _DEBUG
#define new DEBUG_NEW
#endif
// CInterfaceStackApp
BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CInterfaceStackApp, CWinApp)
END_MESSAGE_MAP()
// CInterfaceStackApp construction
CInterfaceStackApp::CInterfaceStackApp()
{
// TODO: add construction code here,
// Place all significant initialization in InitInstance
}
// The one and only CInterfaceStackApp object
CInterfaceStackApp theApp;
// CInterfaceStackApp initialization
BOOL CInterfaceStackApp::InitInstance()
{
CWinApp::InitInstance();
return TRUE;
}
std::string SendStringToDevice(std::string _StringToSend)
{
// Code which attempts to seng _StringToSend to the device
std::string _SendAttemptStatus;
_SendAttemptStatus = "0";
return _SendAttemptStatus;
}
std::string ReceivedFromDevice()
{
std::string _TextReceived;
_TextReceived = "StringFromDevice";
return _TextReceived;
}And here is a sample VB .NET app that imports the MFC DLL functions (for some reason "Add Reference" wouldn't work, but this does if I make the C++ use int/integer instead of std::string/String), then tries to pass a string to the SendStringToDevice function.
VB .NET
Public Class form_Main
Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Try
Dim x As String
' Send a string
x = SendStringToDevice("Hello world")
MsgBox(x.ToString)
' The response
x = ReceivedFromDevice()
MsgBox(x.ToString)
Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox(ex.ToString)
End Try
End Sub
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("InterfaceStack.dll", SetLastError:=False)> _
Public Shared Function SendStringToDevice(ByVal _StringToSend As String) As String
End Function
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("InterfaceStack.dll", SetLastError:=False)> _
Public Shared Function ReceivedFromDevice() As String
End Function
End ClassI believe that I have the Java-based on-device app working fine (it listens for a string via USB) because I adapted the program from the JDE sample.
