C# - API Bindings¶

Requirements¶

• C# compiler

Installation¶

If and how the C# bindings have to be installed depends heavily on how you are going to use them. If you are just calling the C# compiler from the command line then you can just put the Tinkerforge.dll file into the same folder as the C# code of your program.

To use the bindings in an IDE you'll probably have to add the Tinkerforge.dll file to the assembly catalog of the IDE. How this is done depends on the IDE and will be explained in documentation of that IDE.

The C# bindings are also available as NuGet package that can be added in Visual Studio C# and MonoDevelop (via NuGet addin) to your project as external reference.

The NuGet package does neither include the source code of the bindings nor the examples. Those are available as part of the bindings ZIP file.

Testing an Example¶

To test a C# example Brick Daemon and Brick Viewer have to be installed first. Brick Daemon acts as a proxy between the USB interface of the Bricks and the API bindings. Brick Viewer connects to Brick Daemon and helps to figure out basic information about the connected Bricks and Bricklets.

As an example let's compile the configuration example for the Stepper Brick from the command line. For this we copy Tinkerforge.dll file and ExampleConfiguration.cs file from the examples/Brick/Stepper/ folder into a new folder:

example_project/
 -> Tinkerforge.dll
 -> ExampleConfiguration.cs

In the example HOST and PORT specify at which network address the Stepper Brick can be found. If it is connected locally to USB then localhost and 4223 is correct. The UID value has to be changed to the UID of the connected Stepper Brick, which you can figure out using Brick Viewer:

private static string HOST = "localhost";
private static int PORT = 4223;
private static string UID = "XXYYZZ"; // Change XXYYZZ to the UID of your Stepper Brick

Now we can call the Visual Studio C# compiler in the example_project/ folder like this on Windows:

csc /target:exe /out:Example.exe /reference:Tinkerforge.dll ExampleConfiguration.cs

and the Mono Compiler like this on Linux and macOS:

mcs /target:exe /out:Example.exe /reference:Tinkerforge.dll ExampleConfiguration.cs

Alternatively you can use the C# library and example in an C# IDE of your choice such as Visual Studio or MonoDevelop.

CLS Compliance¶

Since version 2.0.0 the C# bindings are Common Language Specification compliant. This allows to use them with all .NET compatible languages. For Visual Basic .NET, Mathematica and LabVIEW (Windows) we provide dedicated examples and documentation to demonstrate this.

API Reference and Examples¶

Links to the API reference for the IP Connection, Bricks and Bricklets as well as the examples from the ZIP file of the bindings are listed in the following table. Further project descriptions can be found in the Kits section.