Binary communications protocol parser design for serial data

Question

I'm revisiting a communications protocol parser design for a stream of bytes (serial data, received 1 byte at a time).

The packet structure (can't be changed) is:

|| Start Delimiter (1 byte) | Message ID (1 byte) | Length (1 byte) | Payload (n bytes) | Checksum (1 byte) ||

In the past I have implemented such systems in a procedural state-machine approach. As each byte of data arrives, the state machine is driven to see where/if the incoming data fits into a valid packet a byte at a time, and once a whole packet has been assembled, a switch statement based on the Message ID executes the appropriate handler for the message. In some implementations, the parser/state machine/message handler loop sits in its own thread so as not to burden the serial data received event handler, and is triggered by a semaphore indicating bytes have been read.

I'm wondering if there is a more elegant solution to this common problem, exploiting some of the more modern language features of C# and OO design. Any design patterns that would solve this problem? Event-driven vs polled vs combination?

I'm interested to hear your ideas. Thanks.

Prembo.

Answer 1

First of all I would separate the packet parser from the data stream reader (so that I could write tests without dealing with the stream). Then consider a base class which provides a method to read in a packet and one to write a packet.

Additionally I would build a dictionary (one time only then reuse it for future calls) like the following:

class Program {
    static void Main(string[] args) {
        var assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
        IDictionary<byte, Func<Message>> messages = assembly
            .GetTypes()
            .Where(t => typeof(Message).IsAssignableFrom(t) && !t.IsAbstract)
            .Select(t => new {
                Keys = t.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(AcceptsAttribute), true)
                       .Cast<AcceptsAttribute>().Select(attr => attr.MessageId),
                Value = (Func<Message>)Expression.Lambda(
                        Expression.Convert(Expression.New(t), typeof(Message)))
                        .Compile()
            })
            .SelectMany(o => o.Keys.Select(key => new { Key = key, o.Value }))
            .ToDictionary(o => o.Key, v => v.Value); 
            //will give you a runtime error when created if more 
            //than one class accepts the same message id, <= useful test case?
        var m = messages[5](); // consider a TryGetValue here instead
        m.Accept(new Packet());
        Console.ReadKey();
    }
}

[Accepts(5)]
public class FooMessage : Message {
    public override void Accept(Packet packet) {
        Console.WriteLine("here");
    }
}

//turned off for the moment by not accepting any message ids
public class BarMessage : Message {
    public override void Accept(Packet packet) {
        Console.WriteLine("here2");
    }
}

public class Packet {}

public class AcceptsAttribute : Attribute {
    public AcceptsAttribute(byte messageId) { MessageId = messageId; }

    public byte MessageId { get; private set; }
}

public abstract class Message {
    public abstract void Accept(Packet packet);
    public virtual Packet Create() { return new Packet(); }
}

---

Edit: Some explanations of what is going on here:

First:

[Accepts(5)]

This line is a C# attribute (defined by AcceptsAttribute) says the the FooMessage class accepts the message id of 5.

Second:

Yes the dictionary is being built at runtime via reflection. You need only to do this once (I would put it into a singleton class that you can put a test case on it that can be run to ensure that the dictionary builds correctly).

Third:

var m = messages[5]();

This line gets the following compiled lambda expression out of the dictionary and executes it:

()=>(Message)new FooMessage();

(The cast is necessary in .NET 3.5 but not in 4.0 due to the covariant changes in how delagates work, in 4.0 an object of type Func<FooMessage> can be assigned to an object of the type Func<Message>.)

This lambda expression is built by the Value assignment line during dictionary creation:

Value = (Func<Message>)Expression.Lambda(Expression.Convert(Expression.New(t), typeof(Message))).Compile()

(The cast here is necessary to cast the compiled lambda expression to Func<Message>.)

I did that this way because I happen to already have the type available to me at that point. You could also use:

Value = ()=>(Message)Activator.CreateInstance(t)

But I believe that would be slower (and the cast here is necessary to change Func<object> into Func<Message>).

Fourth:

.SelectMany(o => o.Keys.Select(key => new { Key = key, o.Value }))

This was done because I felt that you might have value in placing the AcceptsAttribute more than once on a class(to accept more than one message id per class). This also has the nice side affect of ignoring message classes that do not have a message id attribute (otherwise the Where method would need to have the complexity of determining if the attribute is present).