Native messaging app using VB

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scsnake
Posts: 1
Joined: March 18th, 2017, 8:40 pm

Native messaging app using VB

Post by scsnake »

I'm trying to use a VB form application as native app to communicate with firefox extension. Referring to this stackoverflow post, the codes in VB are:

Code: Select all

Private Sub StdOut(ByVal s As String)
        Dim std = Console.OpenStandardOutput()
        Dim arr = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(s)
        Dim len = arr.Length
        For i = 0 To 24 Step 8
            std.WriteByte(CByte((len >> i) And &HFF))
        Next i

        std.Write(arr, 0, len)
        std.Flush()
End Sub
I use "[1]" as the test string but the browser console in Firefox always shows:
JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 2 of the JSON data NativeMessaging.jsm:283
_startRead/this.readPromise< resource://gre/modules/NativeMessaging.jsm:283:11
JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 2 of the JSON data subprocess_common.jsm:479
readJSON/< resource://gre/modules/subprocess/subprocess_common.jsm:479:16
Is there anything wrong in the VB codes? Does anyone have experience in writing VB as native app for firefox extension? (I think there's no problem in the extension side and manifest.json of app.)

Environment:
Win 7 (32-bit), Firefox Developer (52.0a2), Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 Express
isaacschemm
Posts: 270
Joined: January 20th, 2015, 12:29 pm

Re: Native messaging app using VB

Post by isaacschemm »

It looks like maybe the extension is expecting JSON, and whatever string you're passing in as "s" might not be valid JSON.
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