C# get data from another standalone application?

Question

How will I let my c# program to get data from another application?

assume that application is, for example , "Yahoo Messenger" and someone say to you "hi there" on the chatbox...

Now, I want my c# program to read / get that data or information from "Yahoo Messenger chat box" in print it on my application? is it possible?

Think about web services? [ASP.Net Webservices](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t745kdsh.aspx) — Waqas Raja, Oct 12 '11 at 06:43
WCF using in process/machine level connections is an option. — CodingBarfield, Oct 12 '11 at 07:07

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

4

You will need to use visual studio tool name SPY++ for understanding the flow of win32 api.

After that refer to these link

Get text from another application.

http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/66140-scraping-the-text-from-another-application-with-win32-api/

After implementing some part of the code , please repost more specific question related to programming

edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

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answered Oct 12 '11 at 06:54

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score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

It will be easy if that application (Yahoo messenger for example) provides an interface (ex: COM) for other applications to access its information.

If not, you will have to go through Windows API, capturing the handle of the exact window where the text is and all.

Have you any idea what your other application is?

EDIT: Check this Yahoo Answer. Someone has asked the same question, maybe the links provided in the answer would help you: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081126161509AAhr6Dz

Yahoo Answers post content:

I would suggest looking at libpurple. This is a general-purpose IM backend with Yahoo support. It's used by the Pidgin IM client, among others.

However, note that libpurple is a C++ library, so you'd have to call into native code.

this is the other application im talking about.. link: [link]http://www.4shared.com/file/dxVnsMHC/Topaz_Chat.html — user848682, Oct 12 '11 at 07:59

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 12 '11 at 07:29

If you have control over "that application" (e.g.Yahoo messenger), you can create a shared memory using winapi:

    LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpAtt=NULL;

    HANDLE INVALID_FILE_HANDLE=(HANDLE)0xFFFFFFFF; //Memory handle
    hMapFile=::CreateFileMapping(INVALID_FILE_HANDLE,
    lpAtt,PAGE_READWRITE, 0,nSize, SharedMemName);
    if (hMapFile == NULL) 
    { 
        ShowSomeMessageBox("Could not create shared memory");
        return NULL;
    }

    LPTSTR pBuf = (LPTSTR) MapViewOfFile(hMapFile, FILE_MAP_ALL_ACCESS,0,0,nSize);
    if(NULL==pBuf) 
    {
        ShowSomeMessageBox("Could not create mapped view of theshared memory");
        return NULL;
}

Once you have that buffer, you can write data to it using CopyMemory or whatever api.

In your C# application you can use InterOp (P-invoke) to call WinAPI:

Use: OpenFileMapping(),MapViewOfFile() etc. to open the shared memory

Use: Marshal.ReadInt32(), Marshal.StructureToPtr() etc to read the data to your C# data structures.

C# get data from another standalone application?

3 Answers3