Re: Question about Streams and UDP sockets using GNAT.Sockets

[Samuel Tardieu <sam@rfc1149.net>]

>>>>> "Juanma" == lekktu@gmail com <lekktu@gmail.com> writes:

Juanma> Is there any simpler (or more correct) way, or that's about
Juanma> it?

You can also make your own stream type with overloaded Write and Read
procedures and a Send function that will send the data onto the
socket. It will work with anything you want to write into your UDP
packet, not only strings. The advantage of this is that if you use
GLADE encoding library instead of GNAT one, you get a portable UDP
packet format even accross different architecture.

Here is an excerpt of some code I wrote to do this very thing. Then
Sock'Write (Stream.Content (1 .. Stream.Last)) was used.

with Ada.Streams; use Ada.Streams;

private package Shix.Streams is

   --  Gather stream oriented data into one element to be able to
   --  transmit atomic packets.

   Max_Transfer_Size : constant := 1000;

   type Atomic_Stream_Type is new Root_Stream_Type with record
      Content : Stream_Element_Array (1 .. Max_Transfer_Size);
      Next    : Stream_Element_Offset := 1;
      Last    : Stream_Element_Offset := 0;
   end record;

   procedure Read
     (Stream : in out Atomic_Stream_Type;
      Item   : out Stream_Element_Array;
      Last   : out Stream_Element_Offset);

   procedure Write
     (Stream : in out Atomic_Stream_Type;
      Item   : in Stream_Element_Array);

end Shix.Streams;

package body Shix.Streams is

   ----------
   -- Read --
   ----------

   procedure Read
     (Stream : in out Atomic_Stream_Type;
      Item   : out Stream_Element_Array;
      Last   : out Stream_Element_Offset)
   is
      Count : constant Stream_Element_Count :=
        Stream_Element_Count'Min (Item'Length, Stream.Last - Stream.Next + 1);
   begin
      Last := Item'First + Count - 1;
      Item (Item'First .. Last) :=
        Stream.Content (Stream.Next .. Stream.Next + Count - 1);
      Stream.Next := Stream.Next + Count;
   end Read;

   -----------
   -- Write --
   -----------

   procedure Write
     (Stream : in out Atomic_Stream_Type;
      Item   : in Stream_Element_Array)
   is
   begin
      pragma Assert (Stream.Last + Item'Length <= Stream.Content'Last);
      Stream.Content (Stream.Last + 1 .. Stream.Last + Item'Length) := Item;
      Stream.Last := Stream.Last + Item'Length;
   end Write;

end Shix.Streams;