[VB .NET] Read Line from Paltalk 10

i could probably make the default much lower for the MaxBuffer, but I just set it ridiculously high to make sure it always picked up the whole line.

@Chike wrote:

baText(0) = iCount
baText(1) = iCount / 256
This would be good for CPUs that use little endian byte order.

First, baText(0) would fail to get set and throw an exception any time iCount is larger then 255, and second, I would rather see a method that is CPU independent.

My function above may not be perfect, but has worked without fail in all of my testing situations so far.

Thank you Chike for the clarifications. I still dont know why the first byte of the WORD value is the lower half of the WORD, but after removing the byte reversal, my iRetval is never more then my buffer.

So here is the code after making the changes that Chike pointed out:

Private Function ReadLine(ByVal hwnd As IntPtr, ByVal iLine As Integer, Optional ByVal MaxBuffer As Integer = 500) As String
Dim iRetval As Integer
Dim sAnswer As String = Nothing
Dim baText() As Byte
' Cap MaxBuffer so it can never be too large
If MaxBuffer > 65535 Then MaxBuffer = 65535
' Set byte array to max buffer size (times 2 for Wide) + 1
ReDim baText((MaxBuffer * 2) + 1)
' Get bytes for max buffer size
Dim bSize() As Byte
bSize = BitConverter.GetBytes(MaxBuffer)
' Write max buffer size as WORD to begining of baText array
baText(0) = bSize(0)
baText(1) = bSize(1)
' Get Line data (iRetval = number of characters in line)
iRetval = SendMessage(hwnd, EM_GETLINE, iLine, baText)
' Convert byte buffer to string trimmed to retval size
sAnswer = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetString(baText).Substring(0, iRetval)
' Return the retrieved string
Return sAnswer
End Function

I still cap the buffer, but at the full 65535 size that EM_GETLINE can retrieve.

Also due to the Pal limit on text, i lowered the default MaxBuffer size to 500

@Chike wrote:

Now for the other question I had, is the returned array is really unicode or is it just ascii, you can see this quite clear with the debugger before converting.

I am saying it is unicode as every other byte (alternating) in the array is = 0 and the “System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetString” does return the string.

-		baText	{Length=1001}	Byte()

(0)			65				 Byte

(1)			0				  Byte

(2)			108				Byte

(3)			0				  Byte

(4)			101				Byte

(5)			0				  Byte

(6)			114				Byte

(7)			0				  Byte

(8)			116				Byte

(9)			0				  Byte

...

@Chike wrote:

And SendMessage is SendMessageA or SendMessageW?

it is set to auto

Declare Auto Function SendMessage Lib "USER32" (ByVal hwnd As IntPtr, ByVal wMsg As Integer, ByVal wParam As Integer, ByVal lParam As Byte()) As Integer