PC*MILER TCP/IP provides a way to interact with the PC*MILER Connectivity (DLL) Products running on Windows personal computers over a TCP/IP network from any other computer platform. All of the applicable functions of PC*MILER Connect are supported.


TIP:  It is a best practice to restart your system that integrates with PC*MILER Connect on a regular basis such as once per week. Windows operating system resources such as memory, disk space and TCP/IP ports may be in use by PC*MILER and other vendor applications. A system reboot ensures that these resources are returned to the Windows OS and reduces the chance that PC*MILER will slow down due to lack of operating system resources. We recommend rebooting at least once per week, when users are least affected by the system outage.


PC*MILER Connect is thread-safe. The TCP/IP Interface no longer disconnects automatically (if version 14 or higher software is used) and thus can support true simultaneous connections.


Hardware Requirements

  • PC with a 1.5-2 GHz processor and TCP/IP Capability
  • UNIX or other host with TCP/IP Capability
  • Physical Connection (cable)
  • An additional 3 MB hard disk space


Software Requirements

  • Microsoft Windows (11 recommended)
  • PC*MILER with or without the Streets add-on
  • PC*MILER Connect
  • Client software on the UNIX host (sample PERL application provided)


Installation

The installation program copies the PC*MILER TCP/IP files into the default directory: C:\ALK Technologies\PCMILERXX\tcpip.


PC*MILER Connect must be installed prior to running the TCP/IP interface.  The interface program (pcmsock.exe) or the Windows Service (tcpsvc.exe) requires a command-line parameter — a unique port number to which they will be listening.  An optional parameter can be used to designate the thread number.


In addition, a sample client script (simple.pl) is included.  It is intended to run on the client (UNIX, VMS, etc.) system.  The examples are PERL scripts utilizing some features of PERL v.5 which must be installed in order to run the examples.  


For PC*MILER Connect:

pcmsock PC_MILER 2001

or

pcmsock PC_MILER 2001 NA


To set the thread number to 4 (default to 64):

pcmsock PC_MILER 2001 4

or

pcmsock PC_MILER 2001 NA 4


The server program comes with a tester program: tcptest.exe to connect to PC*MILER Connect.  This test program sends commands to the server engine that is running via TCP/IP.  It includes a sample trip (trip.txt) to send to the engine.


Syntax (do not include brackets)

pcmsock [product code] [port number] [dataset code]


(The parameters below are to be used as the Service’s ‘start’ parameters. Dataset Code is optional.  When the parameter is set, the dataset name takes precedence over the default region set in pcmserve.ini.)


Product Code             Product Name

PC_MILER                    = PC*MILER Connect


Dataset Code             Dataset Name

NA                               = North America

AF                                = Africa

AS                                = Asia

EU                                = Europe

ME                               = Middle East

OC                               = Oceania

SA                                = South America


Interface Specifics

The interface is completely text based. One can use a telnet application to test the installation and familiarize oneself with the interface. For example (assuming that the host PC has a 127.0.0.1 address):


For PC*MILER Connect:

telnet 127.0.0.1 [Port #]


When the connection is made, the host PC (server) sends a prompt ending with the word READY. All of the routing functions listed in the corresponding Connectivity manuals are available. 


However, there are a few differences in the syntax. PC*MILER Connect functions do not require (and will not accept) the ServerID parameter. The strings in the parameters must be quoted if they contain commas and/or parentheses.  


Functions that return values in the user-supplied parameters do not use them in the TCP/IP version. Instead, they return these values on a separate line.  


Syntax errors (wrong spelling of functions, missing parameters, etc.) will result in textual error messages.  


Errors in parameters (which cannot be caught by the parser) will result in error codes from the underlying PC*MILER Connect DLL.


Sample Code

For sample code, please refer to the SIMPLE.PL file in the TCPIP folder of your PC*MILER installation (usually C:\ALK Technologies\PCMILERXX\TCPIP).