Installing NetworkTables

NetworkTables is fully supported in .NET, and is probably our most popular package, as it can be used on desktops, coprocessors and the roboRIO. In order to support as many platforms as possible, we provide 2 different packages.

The FRC.NetworkTables project is a reimplementation of the ntcore library entirely in C#. This enables use on systems without the capability for native libraries, such as Android, UWP and iOS. The restrictions is the library requries either .NET 4.6 or .NET Standard 1.3 at a minimum, so it is difficult to use on older systems. We recommend this library for any coprocessor or desktop application

The FRC.NetworkTables.Core project is a wrapper around the ntcore native library. This has the advantage of being much more extensively tested, and with all the communication done in C++ can be faster too. Because we don't need much C#, we can provide a library that works for lower versions of .NET. This library works with .NET 4.0 or higher, or .NET Standard 1.5, which helps working with older projects. However, this requires native libraries to be built for your target platform. We provide the FRC.NetworkTables.Core.DesktopLibraries package, which contains native libraries for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

To install FRC.NetworkTables, the only thing that needs to be installed is the NuGet package. This will install all required dependencies, and is the only thing that needs to be installed.

Installing FRC.NetworkTables.Core

For the FRC.NetworkTables.Core library, start with the core package on NuGet. From this point, if the system you want to run is either Windows, macOS, or Linux, you can install the DesktopLibraries package, which contains all needed references. If your platform in not on that list. You will need to natively compile the ntcore library for your target platform. To then use that build, use the following console arguement when starting up your application.

yourapp.exe -ntcore:/Path/To/Native/Library/Here

Make sure to include the final library executable name in your path.

Use on the roboRIO

When used with WPILib, the extension automatically installs and uses FRC.NetworkTables.Core. The native libraries for the roboRIO are automatically deployed to the roboRIO on code deploy, and the code is automatically setup as a server, so there is no extra needed setup when using WPILib.

Using the library

Once you have the library installed, see either Configuring a server or Configuring a client for instructions on how to use it. Note that in most cases you will be configuring a client, as the server is usually the roboRIO.