I have a loop that reads from a socket in Lua:
socket = nmap.new_socket()
socket:connect(host, port)
socket:set_timeout(15000)
socket:send(command)
repeat
response,data = socket:receive_buf("\n", true)
output = output..data
until data == nil
Basically, the last line of the data does not contain a "\n" character, so is never read from the socket. But this loop just hangs and never completes. I basically need it to return whenever the "\n" delimeter is not recognised. Does anyone know a way to do this?
Cheers
Updated
to include socket code
Update2
OK I have got around the initial problem of waiting for a "\n" character by using the "receive_bytes" method.
New code:
--socket set as above
repeat
data = nil
response,data = socket:receive_bytes(5000)
output = output..data
until data == nil
return output
This works and I get the large complete block of data back. But I need to reduce the buffer size from 5000 bytes, as this is used in a recursive function and memory usage could get very high. I'm still having problems with my "until" condition however, and if I reduce the buffer size to a size that will require the method to loop, it just hangs after one iteration.
Update3
I have gotten around this problem using string.match and receive_bytes. I take in at least 80 bytes at a time. Then string.match checks to see if the data variable conatins a certain pattern. If so it exits. Its not the cleanest solution, but it works for what I need it to do. Here is the code:
repeat
response,data = socket:receive_bytes(80)
output = output..data
until string.match(data, "pattern")
return output
I believe the only way to deal with this situation in a socket is to set a timeout.
The following link has a little bit of info, but it's on http socket: lua http socket timeout
There is also this one (9.4 - Non-Preemptive Multithreading): http://www.lua.org/pil/9.4.html
And this question: http://lua-list.2524044.n2.nabble.com/luasocket-howto-read-write-Non-blocking-TPC-socket-td5792021.html
A good discussion on Socket can be found on this link:
http://nitoprograms.blogspot.com/2009/04/tcpip-net-sockets-faq.html
It's .NET but the concepts are general.
See update 3. Because the last part of the data is always the same pattern, I can read in a block of bytes and each time check if that block has the pattern. If it has the pattern it will mean that it is the end of the data, append to the output variable and exit.
Related
I'm currently attempting to read an incoming message from a client socket, that, prior to the below procedure has already been connected to the server socket. The below procedure outputs the message, one character at a time, as it retrieves it from the stream.
The problem is that, when the stream is out of information, the call to Ada.Streams.Read is blocking, and stops the application flow completely. According to some examples, it would appear as though Offset should be set to 0 automatically at the end of the stream, but that never happens. Instead the application stops at the call to Read.
procedure Read_From (Channel : Sockets.Stream_Access) is
use Ada.Text_IO;
use Ada.Streams;
Data : Stream_Element_Array (1 .. 1);
Offset : Stream_Element_Offset;
begin
loop
Read (Channel.All, Data, Offset);
exit when Offset = 0;
Put (Character'Val (Data (1)));
end loop;
-- The application never reaches this point.
New_Line;
Put_Line ("Finished reading from client!");
end Read_From;
-- #param Channel `GNAT.Sockets.Stream (Client_Socket)`
I've also attempted the same process with GNAT.Sockets.Receive_Socket, but the same issue remains: the application flow is stopped completely, assumably awaiting further information from the stream, even though there is nothing more to retrieve.
Any pointers in the right direction would be highly appreciated!
Normally, you’d read a (binary) message from a stream knowing how much data needed to be read, so you could read until you’d got that much.
But, if you’re reading a text message from an externally-defined source, as it might be an HTTP request, there needs to be some terminator sequence so you can read character-by-character until you’ve read the terminator. In the case of an HTTP request, that’s a CR/LF/CR/LF sequence. Or it could be a null-terminated C string, in which case you’d be looking for the ASCII.NUL.
The Ada way to transfer variable-length text is to use String’Output/String’Input (see ARM 13.13.2(18)ff). What happens for a String (an array of Character) is that first the bounds are sent, then the content; on reception, the bounds are read, a String with those bounds is created, and the required number of bytes are read into the new String, which is then returned.
Basically that's how Ada streams work. The end of the stream only comes once you reach the final end of the stream, not just the current end of a buffer.
If you want to be able to interrupt reading, you have to use another representation of the connection than GNAT.Sockets.Stream_Access.
Yo, I've written a server with a simple protocol: the client sends a line, the server sends a line back in response, repeat. To prevent a client from filling Tcl's output buffer by sending lots of lines but not accepting data back, can I just check chan pending output instead of using the writable fileevent?
proc respond {stream msg} {
if {[chan pending output $stream] <= 1024} {
puts $stream $msg
} else {
#close $stream
}
}
For output, chan pending output will correctly describe the number of bytes waiting in the output queue. Normally, that value will be bounded by the -buffersize value that you chan configure (or fconfigure) it to have.
That value will only be exceeded when the channel is non-blocking; with a blocking channel, when the value would go over it, instead there's a blocking write to the underlying device (socket, pipe, file, serial line, whatever) so by the time you could see that it went over, it's back under the limit again.
But if you're using non-blocking channels, you really should use chan event (or fileevent). Luckily for the actual writes, Tcl will actually do this for you automatically; the single most useful thing you could want from a writable event is already there. In practice, the most common actual use of a writable event is in detecting when an async socket connection becomes ready for service.
So what you are doing will work, but you'll have to think carefully about what to do if the output buffer is “getting full”; the idea that a message can need to be delayed is a place where a simple abstraction tends to become leaky. With 8.6's coroutines, you could (probably) do a transparent suspend or something like that, but getting that sort of thing right can take a little thought. (For example, a GUI client might need to show a busy indicator and put things into a state where the user can't enter more requests.)
I have not been able to find this information anywhere. How long can a string be send with the TTL version of the redpark cable?
The following delegate method is called twice when I print something thorough serial from my Arduino, an example of a string is this: 144;480,42;532,40;20e
- (void) readBytesAvailable:(UInt32)length{
When I use the new function methods of retrieving available data [getStringFromBytesAvailable] I will only get 144;480,42;532,40; and then the whole function is called again and the string now contains the rest of the string: 20e
The following method is working for appending the two strings, but only if the rate of data transmission is 'slow' (1 time a second, I would prefer minimum 10 times a second).
-
(void) readBytesAvailable:(UInt32)length{
if(string && [string rangeOfString:#"e"].location == NSNotFound){
string = [string stringByAppendingString:[rscMgr getStringFromBytesAvailable]];
NSLog(string);
finishedReading = YES;
}
else{
string = [rscMgr getStringFromBytesAvailable];
}
if (finishedReading == YES)
{
//do stuff
}
finishedReading = NO;
string = nil;
}
}
But can you tell my why the methods is called twice if I write a "long" string, and how to avoid this issue?
Since your program fragment runs faster then the time it takes to send a string, you need to capture the bytes and append them to a string.
If the serial data is terminated with a carriage return you can test for it to know when you have received the entire string.
Then you can allow your Arduino to send 10 times a second.
That is just how serial ports work. You can't and don't need to avoid those issues. There is no attempt at any level of the SW/HW to keep your serial data stream intact, so making any assumptions about that in your code is just wrong. Serial data is just a stream of bytes, with no concept of packetization. So you have to deal with the fact that you might have to read partial data and read the rest later.
The serialPortConfig within the redparkSerial header file provided by RedPark does, in fact, give you more configuration control than you may realize. The readBytesAvailable:length method is abstracted, and is only called when one of two conditions is met: rxForwardingTimeout value is exceeded with data in the primary buffer (default set to 100 ms) or rxForwardCount is reached (default set to 16 characters).
So, in your case it looks like you've still got data in your buffer after your initial read, which means that the readBytesAvailable:length method will be called again (from the main run loop) to retrieve the remaining data. I would propose playing around with the rxForwardingTimeout and rxForwardCount until it performs as you'd expect.
As already mentioned, though, I'd recommend adding a flag (doesn't have to be carriage return) to at least the end of your packet, for identification.
Also, some good advice here: How do you design a serial command protocol for an embedded system?
Good luck!
Good morning,
I am retrieving a stream of bytes from a serial device that connects to the iPad. Once connected the supplied SDK will call a delegate method with the bytes that have been forwarded.
The readings forwarded by the serial device via the SDK are in the following format:
!X1:000.0;
Once connected to the serial device the delegated methods will start receiving data immediately - this could be in various states of completion i.e.
:000.00;
What I need to do is establish a concrete way of splitting the readings returned from the serial device so that I can manipulate the data.
Some of the tried options are:
Simply concatenate the received strings for a fixed period and then split the NSString on the ";" character. This is a little inefficient though and does not allow me to manipulate the data dynamically
-(void)receivingDelegateMethod:(NSString *)aString {
if(counter < 60){
[self.PropertyString stringByAppendingString:aString];
}else{
NSArray *readings = [self.PropertyString componentsSeparatedByString: #";"];
}
}
Determine a starting point by looking for the "!" character and then appending the resulting substring to a NSString property. All previous calls to the delegated method will append to this property and then remove the first 10 characters.
I know there are further options such as NSScanners and RegEx but I wanted to get the opinion of the community before wasting more time of different methods.
Thanks
Make a BOOL flag that indicates that the stream has been initialized, and set it to false. When you receive the next chunk of data, check the flag first. If it is not set, skip all characters until you see an exclamation point '!'. Once you see it, discard everything in front of it, and copy the rest of the string into the buffer. If the "is initialized" flag is set, append the entire string to the buffer without skipping characters.
Once you finish the append, scan the buffer for ! and ; delimited sections. For each occurrence of that pattern, call a designated method with a complete portion of the pattern. You can get fancy, and define your own "secondary" delegate for processing pre-validated strings.
You may need to detect disconnections, and set the "is initialized" flag back to NO.
I'm writing a little VOIP app like Skype, which works quite good right now, but I've run into a very strange problem.
In one thread, I'm calling within a while(true) loop the winsock recv() function twice per run to get data from a socket.
The first call gets 2 bytes which will be casted into a (short) while the second call gets the rest of the message which looks like:
Complete Message: [2 Byte Header | Message, length determined by the 2Byte Header]
These packets are round about 49/sec which will be round about 3000bytes/sec.
The content of these packets is audio-data that gets converted into wave.
With ioctlsocket() I determine wether there is some data on the socket or not at each "message" I receive (2byte+data). If there's something on the socket right after I received a message within the while(true) loop of the thread, the message will be received, but thrown away to work against upstacking latency.
This concept works very well, but here's the problem:
While my VOIP program is running and when I parallely download (e.g. via browser) a file, there always gets too much data stacked on the socket, because while downloading, the recv() loop seems actually to slow down. This happens in every download/upload situation besides the actual voip up/download.
I don't know where this behaviour comes from, but when I actually cancel every up/download besides the voip traffic of my application, my apps works again perfectly.
If the program runs perfectly, the ioctlsocket() function writes 0 into the bytesLeft var, defined within the class where the receive function comes from.
Does somebody know where this comes from? I'll attach my receive function down below:
std::string D_SOCKETS::receive_message(){
recv(ClientSocket,(char*)&val,sizeof(val),MSG_WAITALL);
receivedBytes = recv(ClientSocket,buffer,val,MSG_WAITALL);
if (receivedBytes != val){
printf("SHORT: %d PAKET: %d ERROR: %d",val,receivedBytes,WSAGetLastError());
exit(128);
}
ioctlsocket(ClientSocket,FIONREAD,&bytesLeft);
cout<<"Bytes left on the Socket:"<<bytesLeft<<endl;
if(bytesLeft>20)
{
// message gets received, but ignored/thrown away to throw away
return std::string();
}
else
return std::string(buffer,receivedBytes);}
There is no need to use ioctlsocket() to discard data. That would indicate a bug in your protocol design. Assuming you are using TCP (you did not say), there should not be any left over data if your 2byte header is always accurate. After reading the 2byte header and then reading the specified number of bytes, the next bytes you receive after that constitute your next message and should not be discarded simply because it exists.
The fact that ioctlsocket() reports more bytes available means that you are receiving messages faster than you are reading them from the socket. Make your reading code run faster, don't throw away good data due to your slowness.
Your reading model is not efficient. Instead of reading 2 bytes, then X bytes, then 2 bytes, and so on, you should instead use a larger buffer to read more raw data from the socket at one time (use ioctlsocket() to know how many bytes are available, and then read at least that many bytes at one time and append them to the end of your buffer), and then parse as many complete messages are in the buffer before then reading more raw data from the socket again. The more data you can read at a time, the faster you can receive data.
To help speed up the code even more, don't process the messages inside the loop directly, either. Do the processing in another thread instead. Have the reading loop put complete messages in a queue and go back to reading, and then have a processing thread pull from the queue whenever messages are available for processing.