Sending data to robot from driver station computer

[JohnM]

The language my team is C++. Anyways lets say you wanted to make a program run on your computer that was separate from the Driver Station software, and that program had to send commands to the robot.

1. How would you go about sending commands to the robot easily? Any avaible classes?
2. Also how would you make the robot easily understand these commands?

Note: This question might seem vague to probably most of you but I wasn't sure how to word this in the best possible way. If you have any specific questions about this please ask and I will try to clear it up some more.

[Jared]

Have you looked at NetworkTables? It's described on the WPI documentation website. It sends numbers, text, or other data between the DS/roboRIO.

[TFleig78]

You can use SmartDashboard. It's very well explained here:
https://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/3120/m/7932

You are able to send data back and fourth from the dashboard, running on the DS to the robot.

[virtuald]

SmartDashboard/SFX are great if you want a pre-built program to do the communication via NetworkTables. If you want to write your own program, NetworkTables has libraries available in multiple languages. I always recommend pynetworktables, but I'm biased.