🧠 TCP Chat Application in C#

A simple console-based TCP chat application using C# and .NET. It demonstrates how to build a client-server architecture using TCP sockets with multithreading for real-time communication.

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📁 Project Structure

tcp-chat-app-csharp/
├── TcpChatApp.sln
├── ChatServer/
│   ├── ChatServer.cs
│   └── ChatServer.csproj
└── ChatClient/
    ├── ChatClient.cs
    └── ChatClient.csproj

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🚀 How to Run

🖥️ With .NET CLI (TERMINAL)

1. Start the Server
   Open a terminal and go to the ChatServer folder:

   dotnet run
   

You will see: Server started. Waiting for connection...

2. Start the Client
   Open another terminal and go to the ChatClient folder:

   dotnet run
    

Now both sides can send and receive messages in real-time!

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💻 With Visual Studio

1. Open TcpChatApp.sln
2. Right-click ChatServer → Set as Startup Project → Run
3. Then right-click ChatClient → Set as Startup Project → Run
4. Both terminals will appear and allow two-way messaging

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🔧 Technologies Used

• C# (.NET 6+)
• TCP/IP Sockets (System.Net.Sockets)
• Multithreading (System.Threading)
• Console I/O

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🛠 Features

• Two-way communication (Client <--> Server)
• Real-time message exchange via TCP sockets
• Uses multithreading for simultaneous send/receive

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🔐 Future Improvements

• Support multiple clients (multi-threaded server)
• Add message encryption (e.g., SSL or AES)
• Save chat history in a database
• Add GUI using WinForms or WPF

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🧑‍💻 Author

Hariharan
🔗 Portfolio
🔗 GitHub

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📄 License

This project is open-source and available under the MIT License.