SocketMeister

SocketMeister is a high-performance, fault-tolerant, multithreaded TCP/IP socket library for .NET. It provides both client and server implementations with built-in features for automatic reconnection, round‑robin endpoint load balancing, seamless compression, and flexible messaging patterns.

Key Features

• Automatic reconnection & failover: SocketClient transparently reconnects on network errors and cycles through multiple endpoints to find a live server.
• Event‑driven messaging: Support for one-way messages and request/response patterns via MessageReceived and RequestReceived events.
• Broadcast & Publish/Subscribe: SocketServer can broadcast to all clients or to named subscriber groups; clients manage subscriptions by name.
• High‑performance compression: Optional payload compression/decompression for reduced bandwidth usage.
• Scalable, multithreaded server: SocketServer handles thousands of concurrent connections with thread‑safe event dispatch.
• Flexible data types: Exchange strings, byte arrays, numeric primitives, and custom serializable objects out of the box.

Requirements

• .NET support: .NET Framework 3.5 through .NET 9 (incl. .NET Core 3.1, .NET 5/6/7/8).
• Server compatibility: SocketServer requires .NET 4.5 or later.

Installation

Install-Package SocketMeister -Version <latest>

Or embed sources directly:

Install-Package SocketMeister.Sources -Version <latest>

Quick Start

Server Example

using SocketMeister;

var server = new SocketServer(port: 5000, enableCompression: true);

// Handle incoming one-way messages
event EventHandler<SocketServer.MessageReceivedEventArgs> msgHandler = (s, e) =>
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Received from {e.ClientId}: {e.Parameters[0]}");
};
server.MessageReceived += msgHandler;

// Handle request/response
event EventHandler<SocketServer.RequestReceivedEventArgs> reqHandler = (s, e) =>
{
    var cmd = e.Parameters[0] as string;
    e.Response = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes($"ACK: {cmd}");
};
server.RequestReceived += reqHandler;

server.Start();
Console.WriteLine("Server listening on port 5000.");

Client Example

using SocketMeister;

// Connect to multiple endpoints with compression enabled
var client = new SocketClient(
    endpoints: new[] { ("127.0.0.1", 5000), ("server2", 5000) },
    enableCompression: true
);

client.ConnectionStatusChanged += (s, a) =>
    Console.WriteLine($"Client status: {client.ConnectionStatus}");

client.Connect();

// Send a one-way message
client.Send(new object[] { "Hello, Server!" });

// Send a request and wait for reply
var reply = client.SendRequest(new object[] { "Ping" });
Console.WriteLine($"Server replied: {System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(reply)}");

Next Steps

• Browse the Full API Reference for all classes, methods, and events.
• Follow the Getting Started Guide for tutorials and deeper examples.
• Explore advanced scenarios: Pub/Sub Messaging, Custom Serializers.

Happy coding! Feel free to open issues or drop us a ⭐ on GitHub if SocketMeister helps power your project.