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Sokudo

Custom TCP protocol for low latency message transfer.

Description

Sokudo was developed by Giggl for internal purposes where the performance of Websockets is not sufficient. The aim is to provide low latency with average abstraction to the user and remaining lightweight, sokudo has no dependencies except the node base modules.

Installation

NPM:

npm i --save @giggl/sokudo

Yarn:

yarn add @giggl/sokudo

Quick Example

If you just want a simple example of how to use Sokudo you are right here. Note that this example uses Gpack

Server

const { Server } = require("sokudo");
const exampleHandler = {
  op: 5,
  eventName: "example_name",
  structure: ["string", "uint16", "float", "int32"],
}
const app = Server();
app.useHandler(exampleHandler);

app.listen(3015, "127.0.0.1");

app.on(exampleHandler.eventName, (payload, seq, client) => {
  console.log(payload)
});

Client

const { Client } = require("sokudo");
const exampleHandler = {
  op: 5,
  eventName: "example_name",
  structure: ["string", "uint16", "float", "int32"],
}

const connection = new Client("127.0.0.1", 3015);
connection.useHandler(exampleHandler);
connection.on("ready", () => {
  connection.send(exampleHandler.op, ["SomeString", 123, 56.45, 2021]);
});

app.on(exampleHandler.eventName, (payload, seq, client) => {
  console.log(payload)
});

connection.connect();

Message Serialisation & Deserialisation

Sokudo has two main ways to serialise and deserialise messages.

  1. Node Buffers Using this way the serialisation and deserialisation process are processed by the handler its self, which requires more logic implementation but may be able to increase performance in return. This works by providing the handler with two middleware functions, this example will serialise 3 numbers in the signed 32bit range.

    1. The first is the property packer and is responsible for creating a in binary serialised version of the data, note that the data in this case does not need to follow a specific format or type pattern. This packer is then called by sokudo internally which makes it a middleware.

      const handler = {
    // ...
    packer: (data, method) => {
      const buffer = Buffer.alloc(12);
      buffer.writeInt32LE(data.x, 0);
      buffer.writeInt32LE(data.y, 4);
      buffer.writeInt32LE(data.z, 8);
      return buffer;
    }
}

      In this example we serialise x,y,z into a node buffer by using the provided Apis node provides. The Parameters here are:

      • data: any - This is the data provided to the send function, it can be anything which is not null or undefined, it will work with primitives too.
      • method: number - Comes from options passed to the client structure, its a number containing the serialisation method the client and server have agreed upon the handshake process, this needs to be used when clients can be expected to use different methods for serialising data.

    2. The second property is called unpacker and is responsible for taking a buffer and returning the original data deserialised again, the pattern is very similar to the packer with the difference being the first argument containing a node buffer which is the message and returning any datatype representing the original data.

          const handler = {
      //...
      unpacker: (buffer, method) => {
        const parsed_content = {
          x: buffer.readInt32LE(0),
          y: buffer.readInt32LE(4),
          z: buffer.readInt32LE(8),
      };
      return parsed_content;
    }
  }

    Here we take the received buffer and read the original x,y,z numbers back into a JavaScript Object and return this. The Parameters here are:

    • buffer: Buffer - the data received over the network, sokudo will deliver complete messages to this but the parsing itself is responsibility of the unpacker. Since this is middleware sokudo will only forward the returned data to the event handlers.
    • method: number - this is the exact same as when serialisingm, the client/server agreed method for serialising and deserialising messages.

  2. Gpack

    Using this api, the serialisation and deserialisation are done by Sokudo internally using a very space efficient one dimensional serialisation approach. The api usage does not change from manual approach (1) but requires less code. Using Gpack a handler could look like the following:

    const handler = {
 // ...,
 structure: ["int32", "string", "double"]
}

    This will internally create a pack which has the above structure. Gpack requires that when sending a message, the data passed is an ordered array of values!

    So given the above example

    Wrong:

      connection.send(handler.op, ["my string value", 45, 56.454546]); // WRONG

    Correct:

      connection.send(handler.op, [23, "my string value", 56.454546]); // CORRECT

    Also note that At the moment there is a string length limitation of 2^16-1 due to the fact the string length has to be encoded with the message payload. Otherwise there are no limitations or required steps besides that both client and server need to agree to the method of GPACK, further you should pass the options property: preferGpack: true to both server and client which can shorten handshake time.

API

Definition of apis.

Handlers

Handlers are Objects passed to either clients OR the server and describe how to pack and unpack a certain message. A handler needs op and eventName and provide more depending if Gpack is used.

  • op: number - This defines the Op Code which will also be send across the network, needs to be 5 or higher, lower values are reserved.
  • eventName:string - this is a string which shall be used when registering a listener for this message type, i.e .app.on(). this cannot be a number as by design of the Node EventEmitter API.
  • packer?: (data: any, method: number): Buffer - This will be called before send and is there so serialise the message into a Buffer, now that is done, is free to be decided, not required when gpack is used.
  • unpacker?: (buffer: Buffer, method: number): any - this is the reverse of the packer which takes a buffer and reconstructs it into Javascript data, not required when using gpack.
  • structure?: string[] - When submitted sokudo will treat this as a gpack handler and use that if available, it will fallback to packer/unpacker if either client or server do not support gpack.

Example which writes 3 numbers using the node buffer approach of serialisation:

const testHandler2 = {
  op: 5,
  eventName: "mouse_event",
  packer: (data, method) => {
    const buffer = Buffer.alloc(12);
    buffer.writeInt32LE(data.x, 0);
    buffer.writeInt32LE(data.y, 4);
    buffer.writeInt32LE(data.index, 8);
    return buffer;
  },
  unpacker: (buffer, method) => {
    return {
      x: buffer.readInt32LE(0),
      y: buffer.readInt32LE(4),
      index: buffer.readInt32LE(8),
    };
  },
};

Gpack types.

  • string: expects and parses a utf8 encoded string.
  • binary: raw buffer, will be copied 1:1.
  • int8: signed 1 byte integer
  • uint8: unsigned 1 byte integer.
  • int16: signed 2 byte integer
  • uint16: unsigned 2 byte integer.
  • int32: signed 4 byte integer
  • uint32: unsigned 4 byte integer.
  • int64: signed 8 byte integer, note that this returns a BigInt and not a number.
  • uint64: unsigned 8 byte integer, note that this returns a BigInt and not a number.
  • float: 4 byte signed floating point number.
  • double: 8 byte signed floating point number.

Example Usage

Server:

const Server = require("./server")

const app = Server();
app.useHandler(someHandler);
app.on(someHandler.eventName, (unpacked, seq, client) => {
    client.send(SomeOpCode, {some: data})
});
// takes the port and the bind address(default "0.0.0.0") and returns a promise once that listener is ready
server.listen(3015, "0.0.0.0")

Events which the server exposes:

Called when a client disconnects.

app.on("client_close", (client) => {
  console.log("client disconnected!");
});

This is invoked when a new client passed the handshake and is ready

app.on("client_ready", (client) => {
  console.log("client connected!");
});

Client:

const Client = require("./client")

const client = new Client("localhost", 3015, {
    autoReconnect: true, //should the connection be broken, auto reconnect to the server
    heartbeatInterval: 250, // in millisconds, sends these to make sure the connection is still active, note that if the server sends any message that also counts as a heartbeat refresh.
    replay: true, // While theres a disconnect, cache messages and replay them to the server once reconnected, note that for messages send before the 'ready' event, this will be done either way.
})

To use a Handler:

client.useHandler(someHandler);

To listen to messages of a certain handler

client.on(someHandler.eventName, (unpacked, client) => {
    client.send(SomeOpCode, {some: data})
});

ready this is emitted when the connection is established the first time and the handshake was successful, it is possible to send data before this. it will then be queued and send once connected NOTE: Ready is ONLY emitted ONCE, to receive successful reconnects use reconnect

client.on('ready', () => {
    client.send(SomeOp, 'data')
})

reconnect is emitted if a reconnect was sucessful

client.on('reconnect', () => {

})

error is emitted when theres an issue with the connection to the server. if reconnecting is enabled this is when the auto reconnect loop internally starts, reconnect will be emitted when this was sucessful

client.on('error', () => {

})

close will be emitted after a call to client.close() or after a connection has been broken with auto reconnect turned off

client.on('close', () => {
})

LICENSE

Sokudo is licensed under MIT, see LICENSE