API Overview

Import the RTI Connector library

Import the RTI.Connext.Connector.dll library to start using Connector. The API is under the namespace RTI.Connext.Connector.

Make sure that the directory with the native library at rticonnextdds-connector/lib/[arch] is in your PATH environment variable.

Instantiate a new Connector

To create a new Connector you have to pass the path to an XML file and a configuration name. For more information on the XML format check the XML App Creation guide and take a look into this example Configuration.xml.

Connector connector = new Connector("MyParticipantLibrary::Zero", "ShapeExample.xml");

Delete a Connector

To destroy all the DDS entities that belong to a Connector previously created, you can call the Dispose method. Another option is to use the using statement. This is a safer approach since in case of exception it guarantees that the object will be disposed.

using (Connector connector = new Connector(configName, configPath)) {
    // Do stuff with Connector

    // Before going out of the scope, connector.Dispose() is automatically called
}

Write a sample

To write a sample first we need to create a Output by getting it from the Connector object. The output name is defined in the XML configuration.

Output output = connector.GetOutput("MyPublisher::MySquareWriter");

Then we can start using the Instance associated to this Output and set its fields.

Instance instance = output.Instance;
// There are three overloads for 'Set' for int, string and bool types
instance.SetValue("x", 1);
instance.SetValue("color", "BLUE");
instance.SetValue("flag", true);

and finally, we can write the instance:

output.Write();

Alternative, we can fill the Instance fields from a C# object like a class or struct. To do so, we can use the SetValuesFrom method from the Instance class:

// Set some values to the instance
instance.SetValue("x", 2);
instance.SetValue("y", 3);

// Overwrite and set values from this object
MyClass obj = new MyClass {
    x = 1,
    color = "BLUE"
};
instance.SetValuesFrom(obj);

// write
output.Write();

Note that the associated DDS DataWriter was created at the time the Connector class is instanciated.

Reading samples

To read samples we need to get the Input defined in the configuration.

Input reader = connector.GetInput("MySubscriber::MySquareReader");

Then we can retrieve the samples by calling the Read or Take methods. The former will keep the samples in the internal queue and the latter will remove them.

To access to the samples we can use the Samples property from the Input. This is an IEnumerable<Sample> type so we can iterate over them.

// Read samples
input.Take();
Console.WriteLine("Received {0} samples", input.Samples.Count);

// Iterate over the read samples
foreach (Sample sample in input.Samples) {
    if (sample.Info.IsValid) {
        // This sample contains user data.
        // You can get the fields with the GetInt, GetString and GetBool methods.
        int x = sample.Data.GetValueInt32("x");
        string color = sample.Data.GetValueString("color");

        // Or by using the Get<T> method
        int y = sample.Data.GetInt32("y");
    } else {
        // This is a metadata sample.
        Console.WriteLine("Received metadata");
    }
}

We can also convert the sample into a C# object by using the GetSampleAs<T> and GetSampleAsObject methods of the sample:

MyClass sample = sample.Data.GetSampleAs<MyClass>();
int x = sample.X;
string color = sample.Color;