Sending NULL data over a socket - linux

I am currently attempting to communicate with an external application over TCP/IP based socket. I have successfully established a connection with the client and received some data. This manual here states that
After this command is received, the client must read an acknowledgement
octet from the daemon. A positive acknowledgement is an octet of zero bits. A negative acknowledgement is an octet of any other pattern.
I would like to send a positive acknowledgment and I am sending it this way
My server listening code was obtained from here
void WriteData(std::string content)
{
send(newsockfd,content.c_str(),content.length(),0);
}
WriteData("00000000");
My question is if I am sending this data corectly (octet of zero bits) ?
Update:
I have read this post here
which states that send only allows to send a char* array. So I am not sure how I can send a byte over a socket. I know i could do something like this
std::bitset<8> b1 ; // [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]
but i am not sure how i would send that over a socket.

Try
WriteData(std::string("\0",1));
using your function or even:
const char null_data(0);
send(newsockfd,&null_data,1,0);
to send it directly.
WriteData("00000000");
Will actually sends 8 octets of 48 [decimal] (assuming your platform is ASCII which all modern systems are compatible with).
However \0 is the escape sequence used in string literals to represent the null character (that is the zero octet).
There's a conflation (mixing together) in C++ between the notions of characters and bytes that dates back to the earliest days of C and is pretty much baked in.

Related

Python TCP packets getting mixed

I have a multiplayer game written in python and uses TCP, So when I send two packets at the same time they get mixed up example if I send "Hello there" and "man" the client receives "hello thereman".
What should I do to prevent them from getting mixed?
That's the way TCP works. It is a byte stream. It is not message-based.
Consider if you write "Hello there" and "man" to a file. If you read the file, you see "hello thereman". A socket works the same way.
If you want to make sense of the byte stream, you need other information. For example, add line feeds to the stream to indicate end of line. For a binary file, include data structures such as "2-byte length (big-endian) followed by <length> bytes of data" so you can read the stream and break it into decipherable messages.
Note that socket methods send() and recv() must have their return values checked. recv(1024) for example can return '' (socket closed) or 1-1024 bytes of data. The size is a maximum to be returned. send() can send less than requested and you'll have to re-send the part that didn't send (or use sendall() in the first place).
Or, use a framework that does all this for you...

BLE connection buffersize to packet length

I am currently working on a graduation project where I want to transmit a sessiontoken using BLE. On the server side I am using Node.js and Bleno to create the connection. After the client subscribes to the notification, the server will push the token.
A small part of the code is:
const buf1 = Buffer.from(info, 'utf8');
updateValueCallback(buf1);
At this step, I am using nRF Connect to check if everything is working. My intention works, except I see that only the first 20 characters are transferred. (As much as the packet size)
My question concerns the buffer size. Will, when I finally connect to an Android app, the whole string be transmitted? In this case the underlying protocols will cut the string and reassemble it on the other side. In this case the buffer size doesn't matter. Or must I negotiate the MTU to be the size of the string. In other words must the buffersize be the size of the transmitted package?
In the case the buffer is smaller than the whole string, can the whole string still be transmitted with it?
GATT requires that a notification is maximum MTU - 3 bytes long. The default MTU is 23 so hence the maximum modification value length is 20 bytes by default. By negotiating a larger MTU you can send longer notifications (if your BLE stack supports that).
I haven't used Bleno but all the stack that I have used I needed to slice the data myself 20 bytes at the time. And on receiver side collect them and put them together again.
The stacks have been good to buffer the data and transmit it one chunk at the time. So I have looped the function (as your updateValueCallback()) until all the slices of my data was done.
Hope it works for you.

Serial port programming - Recognize end of received data

I am writing a serial port application using VC++, in which I can open a port on a switch device, send some commands and display their output. I am running a thread which always read open port for output of given command. My main thread waits until read completes, but problem is how do I recognize that command output ends, and I should signal main thread.
Almost any serial port communication requires a protocol. Some way for the receiver to discover that a response has been received in full. A very simple one is using a unique byte or character that can never appear in the rest of the data. A linefeed is standard, used by any modem for example.
This needs to get more elaborate when you need to transfer arbitrary binary data. A common solution for that is to send the length of the response first. The receiver can then count down the received bytes to know when it is complete. This often needs to be embellished with a specific start byte value so that the receiver has some chance to re-synchronize with the transmitter. And often includes a checksum or CRC so that the receiver can detect transmission errors. Further embellishments then is to make errors recoverable with ACK/NAK responses from the receiver. You'd be then well on your way in re-inventing TCP. The RATP protocol in RFC-916 is a good example, albeit widely ignored.

How get data from glucometers in J2ME using serial port?

I have to do an application for a GPRS modem JAVA (J2ME) programmable that must interface with an electromedical device (glucometer).
I have an input buffer and an output buffer on the serial port of the device.
When the application starts, I listen on the serial port and I receive from the glucometer one byte with the decimal code "5" which corresponds, to the ASCII table, the symbol of Enquiry and after 15 seconds I get the bytes "4" that corresponds to the End of Transmission.
To receive data from the glucometer I need to send an ACK signal (acknowledge) which corresponds to the byte "6".
I tried the following forms:
outBuffer.write("ACK\r\n".getBytes()); //first without setting the charset and after I trying to set all the charset.
I tried to send a byte buffer like this:
byte[] bSend = new byte[] { 6 };
outBuffer.write(bSend); //(I tried also with the byte 10 (LF) and 13 (CR)).
The result is that I can not receive data but I get ​​cyclically but only the values 5 and 4.
With all the software that can comunicate with serial port (like Serial Monitor) if I send an ACK message I receive data from glucometer correctly.
I think my problem is due to the value of the ACK coding in Java, someone can indicate any solution?
As this seems to be a pretty low-level interface that uses ASCII control characters to do its communication I think you need to send these byte values verbatim, and without extra stuff like newlines or whatever. This means that
byte[] bSend = new byte[] { 6 };
outBuffer.write(bSend);
Is the correct approach. Now, this protocol looks a lot like ASTM E1381, so I checked here and paragraph 6.1.2 might be related to your problem:
When the meter initiates the Establishment Phase, the meter determines
if the computer is connected by initially sending an <ENQ> character.
If the computer responds within 15 seconds by sending an <ACK>
character, the meter proceeds with Data Transfer Mode. If the computer
responds within 15 seconds with a <NAK> character, the meter sends an
<EOT> then attempts to enter Remote Command Mode, by looking for an
<ENQ> character from the computer. Also see "Section 6.2 Remote
Command Mode Protocol". Any response within 15 seconds to the meter’s
<ENQ> other than an <ACK> or <NAK> character causes the meter to send
an <EOT>, delay one second, then send another <ENQ>. If the computer
does not respond within 15 seconds, then the meter sends an <EOT>,
delays one second, then sends another <ENQ> and waits again for a
response from the computer. Note: One second after sending an <ENQ>,
the meter may enter a low power mode. Thus, there is a possibility
that the first <ACK> sent by the computer is not read correctly. In
this case, the meter responds with an <EOT>, delays one second, then
sends another <ENQ>.
Emphasis mine, I guess that that's what's happening. So, you should repeat sending another ENQ to get it into data transfer mode, assuming that that's what you want.
it should be
byte bSend=(byte)0x6;
outBuffer.write(bSend);

Understanding protocols

guys need some insight here.
I know the definition of a protocol, being new to this c++ programming is quite a challenging
task.I am creating a Multi-threaded chat using SDL/C++, this is a learning experience for me
and now i have encounter a hump in which I need to overcome but understanding it is a little more difficult than I had thought.I need to make a chat protocol of some sort, I think...but am stump. Up until this point i have been sending messages in strings of characters.Now that am improving the application to the point where clients can register and login, I need a better way to communicating with my clients and server.
thank you.
Create objects that represent a message, then serialize the object, send it over the network, then deserialize at the other end.
For example, you could create a class called LoginMessage that contains two fields. One for a user name, and one for a password. To login, you would do something like:
LoginMessage *msg = new LoginMessage();
msg->username = "Fred";
msg->password = "you'll never guess";
char *serialized_msg = serialize(msg);
// send the bytes over the network
You would do something similar at the other end to convert the byte stream back into an object.
There are APIs for creating message objects and serializing them for you. Here are two popular ones. Both should suit your needs.
Protocol Buffers by Google
Thrift By Facebook
If you want the serialized messages to be readable, you can use YAML. Google has an API called yaml-cpp for serializing data to YAML format.
UPDATE:
Those APIs are for making your own protocol. They just handle the conversion of messages from object form to byte stream form. They do have feature for the actual transport of the messages over the network, but you don't need to use those features. How you design your protocol it up to you. But if you want to create messages by hand, you can do that too.
I'll give you some ideas for creating your own message format.
This is one way to do it.
Have the first 4 bytes of the message represent the length of the message as an unsigned integer. This is necessary to figure out where one message ends and where the next one starts. You will need to convert between host and network byte order when reading and writing to/from these four bytes.
Have the 5th byte represent the message type. For example, you could use a 1 to indicate a login request, a 2 to indicate a login response, and 3 to indicate a chat message. This byte is necessary for interpreting the meaning of the remaining bytes.
The remaining bytes would contain the message contents. For example, if it was a login message, you would encode the username and password into these bytes somehow. If it is a chat message, these bytes would contain the chat text.

Resources