This is a demo protocol for CommsChampion Ecosystem. It demonstrates various available fields definitions as well as simple transport framing.

The protocol is defined in the schema file using CommsDSL. The commsds2comms code generator from commsdsl project is used to generate C++11 code of the protocol implementation.

This project also contains two example applications (client + server), which demonstrate exchange of the protocol messages over TCP/IP link.

The contents of the protocol messages demonstrate various fields definitions. All the messages are uni-directional. All of them are sent from client to server, except one (Ack) that is sent back from server to client.

The transport framing is

SYNC (2 bytes) | SIZE (2 bytes) | ID (1 byte) | PAYLOAD | CHECKSUM (2 bytes)

where

• SYNC is synchronization bytes, expected to be 0xab 0xcd.
• SIZE is remaining length (including CHECKSUM)
• ID is numeric ID of the message.
• PAYLOAD is message payload.
• CHECKSUM is 16 bit CRC-CCITTT checksum of SIZE | ID | PAYLOAD bytes.

The code generators from the commsdsl repository generate full CMake projects. Some of these generated projects are hosted as separate repositories that can be viewed and used independently.

• cc.demo1.generated - Protocol definition
• cc.demo1_protocol.cc_tools_plugin - Protocol plugin for the CommsChampion Tools.

The server prints values of received message's fields and sends back Ack message.

The client reads numeric message ID from standard input. Once proper message ID is entered, it prepares and sends requested message to the server, then waits for Ack. When the latter is received, inquires for new message ID to send.

Please read License section from commsdsl project.

This project uses CMake as its build system. Please open main CMakeLists.txt file and review available options as well as mentioned available parameters, which can be used in addition to standard ones provided by CMake itself, to modify the default build.

This project also has external dependencies, it requires an access to the COMMS Library and code generators from commsdsl projects. These dependencies are expected to be built independenty and access to them provided via standard CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH and/or CMAKE_PROGRAM_PATH (for the binaries of the code generators). There are also scripts ( script/prepare_externals.sh for Linux and script/prepare_externals.bat for Windows) which can help in preparation of these dependencies. They are also used in configuration of the github actions.

The project's cmake configuration options allow building bindings to other high level programming languages using swig and emscripten, see relevant commsdsl's documentation pages for details.

The example applications use Boost to parse their command line parameters as well as manage their asynchronous I/O. In case Boost libraries are not installed in expected default location (mostly happens on Windows systems), use variables described in CMake documentation to help CMake find required libraries and headers. It is recommended to use -DBoost_USE_STATIC_LIBS=ON parameter to force linkage with static Boost libraries.

$> cd /source/of/this/project
$> mkdir build && cd build
$> BUILD_DIR=$PWD CC=gcc CXX=g++ COMMON_INSTALL_DIR=$PWD/install COMMON_BUILD_TYPE=Release ../script/prepare_externals.sh
$> cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$PWD/install -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=$PWD/install
$> make install

$> cd C:\source\of\this\project
$> mkdir build && cd build
$> set BUILD_DIR=%cd%
$> set GENERATOR="NMake Makefiles"
$> set QTDIR=C:\Qt\5.15.2
$> set COMMON_INSTALL_DIR=%cd%/install
$> ..\script\prepare_externals.bat
$> cmake .. -G "NMake Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ^
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=%cd%/install -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=%cd%\install ^
    -DBOOST_ROOT="C:\Libraries\boost_1_65_1" -DBoost_USE_STATIC_LIBS=ON
$> nmake install

Please read Supported Compilers info from commsdsl project.

Please read the Generated CMake Project Walkthrough documentation page for details on the generated project internals.

The release artifacts contain doxygen generated documentation of the protocol definition.

For bug reports, feature requests, or any other question you may open an issue here in github or e-mail me directly to: [email protected]. I usually respond within 24 hours.