GeometryServiceNetworkProtocol

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The Geometry Service Network (GSNet) Protocol is a TCP/IP based protocol designed to facilitate socketed communications between Geometry Service Nodes on a network. A Geometry Service Node is defined as any softwares that supports communication via the GSNet Protocol.

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GSNet Msg (Visual) Breakdown

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GSNet Msg Description

Header

The header of the GSNet Msg contains the information necessary for quickly determining authenticity, type and length. Geometry Service's network library, libNetwork, is built upon BRL-CAD's networking library: libPKG. This causes the header byte layout to look like this:

Element	Length	Value
MsgType	int16 (2 bytes)
MessageLength	int32 (4 bytes)	Does *NOT* include the type or length, so is packet size - 6
MessageUUID	String (Variable bytes)
HasRegardingUUID	Boolean (1 byte)
RegardingMessageUUID	String (Variable bytes)

GSNet Part

• MsgType: 2 byte integer value that tells what type of message this is.
• MessageUUID: Standard UUID for this message. Currently stored as a string.
• HasRegardingUUID: Boolean flag that indicates whether there is a Regarding UUID or not.
• RegardingMessageUUID: Standard UUID that indicates this NetMsg is a response to another NetMsg.

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Data

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The Data load of a NetMsg is, obivously, the important and unique part. Data Loads can be as small as zero (in the case of a TypeOnlyMsg) or many kilobytes long.

Here is a list of NetMsg types and here is a list of Common NetMsg Exchanges.