Logic Plus Inc.

Piper 1.0

Fast & simple ActiveX object for IP communication.

Piper is an ActiveX component that provides your application with Pipe objects that you can use to connect to any TCP/IP enabled application across the network.

Piper's nitch is its simplicity and light weight. Piper can be embedded in a Web Page like this one (IE required), or as a control in a VB application, or in a C++ application. Any COM enabled development environment can take advantage of Piper.

To give you an idea of how cool Piper is, a Pipe object is used in the example shown to connect up to the server of your choice. The code that makes all that possible is surprisingly simple.
To embed Piper in the page, auto-download, and install on demand this code is used:
<object classid=
"clsid:1F20FDCF-C225-11D2-84F2-444553540000"
id=Pipe
codebase="http://bitbuilder.com/free/bin/Piper.dll">
</OBJECT>

VB and VBA scripting hosts can also create a Pipe object and connect to a server in two very simple steps like this:

Set Pipe = CreateObject("Piper.Pipe")
    Pipe.Open "ftp.microsoft.com", 25

And that's all it takes to connect to an ftp site. Once you are connected to any server you can send data simply like this:


    Pipe.Send "user WebMaster" & vbcrlf

The real nice thing about Piper is not only will it act as a generic TCP/IP client, it will also act as a server. For example, if your machine's name on the network is MyComputer then setting up a server would be as simple as follows:


Set Pipe = CreateObject("Piper.Pipe")
    Pipe.Listen 1000

1000 is the PipeID (port number) your pipe is listening on. If this parameter is not specified the Pipe will listen on PipeID 2312.
Applications on other remote machines can connect to this listener Pipe like this:


Set Pipe = CreateObject("Piper.Pipe")
    Pipe.Open "MyComputer", 1000
    Pipe.Send "Hello", currentPipeID

currentPipeID is a PipeID that is assigned when the connection is opened to a server. The application or web page the Pipe is running at on MyComputer will get notifications that inform it of each new Pipe that is opened to this machine, the PipeID assigned to the new Pipe, when the Pipe is closed, and when data has been received from the Pipe.

The number of simultanious Pipes that a Listener Pipe supports is only limited by your local system resources. So it is very conceivable to implement a full HTTP server running on a web page on your machine. But that is not very practicle, since the Listener Pipe will be closed once youshutdown your web browser that the page is running inside. The point is that you can do it !.

Piper.Dll is only 73.7KB. If you are running IE 3 and above then it should be installed already on your machine (or still downloading) and the example below should be operational.

Host name:	Port #:

Host Name: Name or IP of the host computer.
Port #: Port number the service is listening on.
Below is a list of protocols and the port numbers that the servers supporting those protocols listen on:

```
echo      7
	
```
```
ftp       21
	
```
```
telnet    23
	
```
```
smtp      25
	
```
```
pop       110
```

You do not need to do anything else to enable Piper on your machine.
Users of other Non-ActiveX enabled browsers can download the Piper.DLL from here.

To install Piper copy Piper.DLL to your Windows\System folder. From the command prompt CD to that folder and type the following:

Regsvr32 Piper.DLL

You should see a dialog notifieing you that registration has succeeded and your done.

Good Luck !