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c#xamlxamarinxamarin.formsmessagingcenter

Send string from Android project to PCL with MessagingCenter

This is my first post on this forum so any tips on how to make the question more understandable/readable and so on is appreciated.

What am I doing?

I am making my first app using Xamarin Forms, and I have two projects, PCL (Portable Class Library) and Android. My Android project receives incoming SMS from a specific number and saves it to a string. What I am trying to achieve is that by using MessagingCenter, send the string from my Android project to my PCL.

My problem:

I have seen a lot of threads regarding this, but there is something I am missing. And because I am new to this forum I can't write comments so I have to create my own question. Let me show you some of the code. (parsedsms is the string containing the SMS)

SmsReceiver.cs (In my Android project)

MessagingCenter.Send<SmsReceiver, string> (this, "ParsedSmsReceived", parsedsms);

MissionPage.xaml.cs (In my PCL project)

MessagingCenter.Subscribe<SmsReceiver, string> (this, "ParsedSmsReceived",
(sender, arg) => 
{ 
    string message = arg; 
});

This is an example that I found on another thread here on Stackoverflow. My problem is that parsedsms can't be accessed from the PCL. How can I access the SmsReceiver class from my PCL? You can't add a reference from PCL (because it is a library I guess) to Android, only the other way around.

Solution

  • As @Jason wrote in the comments, the solution is to use Object instead of SmsReceiver like this:

    SmsReceiver.cs

    MessagingCenter.Send<Object, string> (this, "ParsedSmsReceived", parsedsms);

    MissionPage.xaml.cs

    MessagingCenter.Subscribe<Object, string> (this, "ParsedSmsReceived",
(sender, arg) => 
{ 
    string message = arg; 
});

    This works fine, but if MessagingCenter actually is the right way to go is another question. As @Csharpest commented using DependencyService might be a better solution.