MailboxShell 1.0.0

MailboxShell

Library, that provides Mailbox class. The Mailbox class is a shell for a Socket object for a more simple network packets sending and receiving. So it segments TCP traffic for packets and returns data in this view.

How to use

1. Get the Socket object
2. Create Mailbox by Mailbox mailbox = new Mailbox(socket)

Network packets sending and receiving completes by mailbox.tick(); function in the NonBlocking mode. I.E. the best solution is to call this method with some interval (you can create a special thread to call this). mailbox.tick(); returns false when an error occurs or remote host is diconnected

Send a packet

1. Create Packet object by Packet packet = new Packet([yourdata : byte[]]); (for example Packet packet = new Packet(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Hello!")))
2. To send packet call mailbox.Send(packet)
3. Call mailbox.Tick()

Receive a packet

1. Call mailbox.Tick() in main or other thread with some time intervals
2. To receive packet on connected host use mailbox.Next() to get a packet if any packet is received (null else) or mailbox.ForeachReceived() to get all received packets Enumerator or if your update frequency is enought it's better to use mailbox.GetAllReceived() to get all received packets. It's better to use GetAllReceived method only to get all packets in one order or Next with ForeachReceived if you want to get each of packets separately !!!Don't forget to call mailbox.tick()!!!
3. Received data bytes array is in packet.data field

Constructor args

Mailbox class has constructor: public Mailbox(Socket socket, int maxReceiveFragmentsPerTick = 64, int sendPacketsPerTick = 0, int maxPacketSize = 0)

• Socket socket - socket that this object will be the facade of
• int maxReceiveFragmentsPerTick - limit of received fragments per tick
• int sendPacketsPerTick - limit of packets, that can be sended per tick
• int maxPacketSize - limit of received packet size

Other properties and methods

• bool IsConnected - checks if socket is connected (Connected socket property)
• void Close() - close socket
• bool IsSendQueueEmpty - checks if send queue is empty
• void ClearReceived() - clears received packet queue
• void ClearReceivedQueue() - clears send packet queue
• void ClearAll() - clears both packet queues
• Packet Packet.CloneDataRef() - returns new ready for sending Packet with some data ref

Mailbox's owner

• You can set owner object of mailbox by void SetOwner(IMailboxOwner) method and get it by TYPE GetOwner<TYPE>() method.
• Owner object must implement IMailboxOwner interface and have MailboxSafe object

For example:

public class ClientInfo : IMailboxOwner { 

	public MailboxSafe MailboxSafe { get; } = new MailboxSafe();
	
}

• Also call mailbox.RemoveOwner() to remove owner object link.
• Owner link methods are thread-safe, but don't use it too often. The purpose of these methods is to bind mailbox owner object in the start of handling
• Also you can use GetMailbox, SetMailbox, RemoveMailbox IMailboxOwner's extension methods. They call similar methods in owned mailbox

Example

(You can find the Test project in this repository MailboxShell solution) Lightweight example:

Client

Socket socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
socket.Connect(IPAddress.Parse(SERVER_IP), SERVER_PORT);
Mailbox mailbox = new Mailbox(socket);

while(true) {
	string message = Console.ReadLine();
	mailbox.Send(new Packet(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(message)));
	while(true) {
		mailbox.Tick();
		Packet receivedPacket = mailbox.Next(); //Try to get the next packet
		if(receivedPacket != null) {
			Console.WriteLine($"Server response: \"{Encoding.UTF8.GetString(receivedPacket.data)}\"");
			break;			
		}
			
		Thread.sleep(1);
	}
}

Server

Socket serverSocket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
serverSocket.Bind(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse(ip), port));
serverSocket.Listen(10);
Mailbox mailbox = new Mailbox(serverSocket.Accept());
while(true) {
	mailbox.Tick(); //Tick to receive
	foreach(Packet packet in mailbox.SwapGetReceived()) {
		string message = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(packet.data); //Get message from packet.data
		mailbox.Send(new Packet(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Echo: " + message))); //Send response
	}
	mailbox.Tick(); //Tick to send (but both ticks can be in one in this case)
	Thread.sleep(1);
}