How to send packet using binary communication protocol on tcp port

Question

I am working on a device which would work to measure some readings through sensors. Device is operated by an Android app. I have to take readings from TCP layer. This is the code to send data on TCP

TcpClient.java

import android.util.Log;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.InetAddress;
import java.net.Socket;

/**
* Created by shahbaz on 25/4/17.
*/

 public class TcpClient {

 public static final String SERVER_IP = "192.168.1.76"; //server IP address
 public static final int SERVER_PORT = 1800;
 // message to send to the server
 private String mServerMessage;
 // sends message received notifications
 private OnMessageReceived mMessageListener = null;
 // while this is true, the server will continue running
 private boolean mRun = false;
 // used to send messages
 private PrintWriter mBufferOut;
 // used to read messages from the server
 private BufferedReader mBufferIn;

 /**
  * Constructor of the class. OnMessagedReceived listens for the messages received from server
  */
 public TcpClient(OnMessageReceived listener) {
    mMessageListener = listener;
 }

/**
 * Sends the message entered by client to the server
 *
 * @param message text entered by client
 */
public void sendMessage(String message) {
    if (mBufferOut != null && !mBufferOut.checkError()) {
        mBufferOut.println(message);
        mBufferOut.flush();
    }
}

/**
 * Close the connection and release the members
 */
public void stopClient() {

    mRun = false;

    if (mBufferOut != null) {
        mBufferOut.flush();
        mBufferOut.close();
    }

    mMessageListener = null;
    mBufferIn = null;
    mBufferOut = null;
    mServerMessage = null;
}

public void run() {

    mRun = true;

    try {
        //here you must put your computer's IP address.
        InetAddress serverAddr = InetAddress.getByName(SERVER_IP);

        Log.e("TCP Client", "C: Connecting...");

        //create a socket to make the connection with the server
        Socket socket = new Socket(serverAddr, SERVER_PORT);

        try {

            //sends the message to the server
            mBufferOut = new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream())), true);

            //receives the message which the server sends back
            mBufferIn = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));


            //in this while the client listens for the messages sent by the server
            while (mRun) {

                mServerMessage = mBufferIn.readLine();

                if (mServerMessage != null && mMessageListener != null) {
                    //call the method messageReceived from MyActivity class
                    mMessageListener.messageReceived(mServerMessage);
                }

            }

            Log.e("RESPONSE FROM SERVER", "S: Received Message: '" + mServerMessage + "'");

        } catch (Exception e) {

            Log.e("TCP", "S: Error", e);

        } finally {
            //the socket must be closed. It is not possible to reconnect to this socket
            // after it is closed, which means a new socket instance has to be created.
            socket.close();
        }

    } catch (Exception e) {

        Log.e("TCP", "C: Error", e);

    }

}

   //Declare the interface. The method messageReceived(String message) will must be implemented in the MyActivity
   //class at on asynckTask doInBackground
   public interface OnMessageReceived {
    public void messageReceived(String message);
}

}

Packet Structure

Packet format contains, While communicating with the device on TCP, boundaries between packets are not identified, in this case if the packets are out of sequence or if any of the packets is missed one can identify a new packet using ‘header start’. So, first 2 bytes in the packet represent the start of the packet.

Header start: Two-byte field that indicates the start of every packet. 0x55AA is a 2 bytes number used as header start.

Protocol version: One-byte field to specify the version of the protocol in use. Version specified in the payload will decide the payload structure. At any given moment a device will support single protocol version. Present protocol version is ‘1’.

DSN: Sequence number is 1-byte field which will identify the packet uniquely. Requester of the packet will have to fill this field in request payload; responder has to fill the same unique identifier in the response payload.

Request Id: One-byte field specifies the command id. The parsing of the payload will be done on the basis of the command id. In case of request payload this field will be non zero and in case of response it will be zero.

Payload length: Two-byte field specifies the length of the payload in bytes. It specifies the number of bytes followed payload length field. In the payload length, header length and CRC is not included. Currently, Max payload length supported by gateway device is 512 (bytes). CRC: 1 byte field which will be calculated by XORing all the bytes and add the XOR count of 0.

And it is working. But according to docs I have to send packet using binary communication protocol. Including header start, payload data, etc. How can I send these params in packet structure? How can I create packet?

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

The main mistake was that I was not thinking much about size of primitive data types.

byte = 1 byte

short = 2 bytes

int = 4 bytes

long = 8 bytes

float = 4 bytes

double = 8 bytes

char = 2 byte

After referencing the size of primitive datatypes I realised we should track the size and index of packet because we are dealing with byte array.

TcpPacket.java

public class TcpPacket {

private static int header_start =  0x55AA;

private static int protocol_version = 1;

private PacketUtils packetUtils = new PacketUtils();






 public byte[] getHandshakePacket()
 {
    int request_id = 1;

    byte[] header_data = packetUtils.ItoBA2(header_start);
    byte[] payload_data = packetUtils.ItoBA4(packetUtils.getDateTime());
    byte[] payload_length = packetUtils.ItoBA2(4);


    byte[] a_data = new byte[]{header_data[0], header_data[1], (byte) protocol_version, packetUtils.getDSN(), (byte) request_id, payload_length[0], payload_length[1],
            payload_data[0], payload_data[1], payload_data[2], payload_data[3]};

    byte[] b_data = new byte[]{ packetUtils.getCRC(a_data)};

    byte[] packet_data = packetUtils.concatBytes(a_data,b_data);


    return packet_data;
 }

}

PacketUtils.java

public class PacketUtils {



public byte[] ItoBA4(int value) {       // integer to bytes function (return byte array of 4 bytes)
    return new byte[] {
            (byte)(value >>> 24),
            (byte)(value >>> 16),
            (byte)(value >>> 8),
            (byte)value};
}


public byte[] ItoBA2(int value) {   // integer to bytes function (return byte array of 2 bytes)
    return new byte[] {
            (byte)(value >>> 8),
            (byte)value};
}


public byte getDSN()    // return one byte random number
{
    char[] chars = "1234567890".toCharArray();
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    Random random = new Random();
    for (int i = 0; i < 1; i++) {
        char c = chars[random.nextInt(chars.length)];
        sb.append(c);
    }
    byte output = Byte.valueOf(sb.toString());
    return output;
}



public byte getCRC(byte[] packet)   //  required CRC function (return byte)
{
    try
    {
        if (packet == null)
        {
            //Logger.Error("empty packet received");
            return (byte)0;
        }

        byte XORCheckSum = 0;
        byte zeroCount = 0;
        byte FFCount = 0;

        for (int i = 0; i < packet.length; i++)
        {
            XORCheckSum ^= packet[i];
            if (packet[i] == (byte) 0)
            {
                zeroCount++;
                continue;
            }
            if (packet[i] == (byte)255)
            {
                FFCount++;
                continue;
            }
        }

        XORCheckSum ^= zeroCount;
        XORCheckSum ^= FFCount;
        return XORCheckSum;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        //Logger.Error(ex);
        return (byte)0;
    }
}



byte[] concatBytes(byte[]...arrays)     //  concatenate byte arrays
{
    // Determine the length of the result array
    int totalLength = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < arrays.length; i++)
    {
        totalLength += arrays[i].length;
    }

    // create the result array
    byte[] result = new byte[totalLength];

    // copy the source arrays into the result array
    int currentIndex = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < arrays.length; i++)
    {
        System.arraycopy(arrays[i], 0, result, currentIndex, arrays[i].length);
        currentIndex += arrays[i].length;
    }

    return result;
}

public int getDateTime()
{
    int dateInSec = (int) (System.currentTimeMillis() / 1000);
    return dateInSec;

}



}