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C sharp to Java : MemoryStream and BinaryReader

I am working on a network device and catching packets from it over network as UDP. In some parts i need to parse a byte array (packetBuffer) to get session header but i couldn't. I found a part of code but unfortunatelly it is C sharp and i also couldn't convert it to java. It is like below;
MemoryStream memstream = new MemoryStream(packetbuffer);
BinaryReader binreader = new BinaryReader(memstream);
byte[] sessionheader = binreader.ReadBytes(4);
ushort ROapdu_type = correctendianshortus(binreader.ReadUInt16());
I need to find what MemoryStream and BinaryReader in C# equivalent in Java is.
I appreciate for all your helps.

you can use getData to get byte[], then extract 4 bytes from the result array and use ByteBuffer.wrap(result4Byte).getInt() to convert it into int(you may need to use order to set byte ordering to little/big endian)

Send binary file from Java Server to C# Unity3d Client with Protocol Buffer

I have asked this question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32735189/sending-files-from-java-server-to-unity3d-c-sharp-client but I saw that it isn't an optimal solution to send files between Java and C# via built-in operations, because I also need also other messages, not only the file content.
Therefore, I tried using Protobuf, because it is fast and can serialize/deserialize objects platform independent. My .proto file is the following:
message File{
optional int32 fileSize = 1;
optional string fileName = 2;
optional bytes fileContent = 3;
}
So, I set the values for each variable in the generated .java file:
file.setFileSize(fileSize);
file.setFileName(fileName);
file.setFileContent(ByteString.copyFrom(fileContent, 0, fileContent.length);
I saw many tutorials about how to write the objects to a file and read from it. However, I can't find any example about how to send a file from server socket to client socket.
My intention is to serialize the object (file size, file name and file content) on the java server and to send these information to the C# client. So, the file can be deserialized and stored on the client side.
In my example code above, the server read the bytes of the file (image file) and write it to the output stream, so that the client can read and write the bytes to disk through input stream. I want to achieve the same thing with serialization of my generated .proto file.
Can anyone provide me an example or give me a hint how to do that?

As described in the documentation, protobuf does not take care of where a message start and stops, so when using a stream socket like TCP you'll have to do that yourself.
From the doc:
[...] If you want to write multiple messages to a single file or stream, it is up to you to keep track of where one message ends and the next begins. The Protocol Buffer wire format is not self-delimiting, so protocol buffer parsers cannot determine where a message ends on their own. The easiest way to solve this problem is to write the size of each message before you write the message itself. When you read the messages back in, you read the size, then read the bytes into a separate buffer, then parse from that buffer. [...]
Length-prefixing is a good candidate. Depending on what language you're writing, there are libraries that does length-prefixing for e.g. TCP that you can use, or you can define it yourself.
An example representation of the buffer on the wire might beof the format might be (beginning of buffer to the left):
[buf_length|serialized_buffer2]
So you code to pack the the buffer before sending might look something like (this is in javascript with node.js):
function pack(message) {
var packet = new Buffer(message.length + 2);
packet.writeIntBE(message.length, 0, 2);
message.copy(packet, 2);
return packet;
}
To read you would have to do the opposite:
client.on('data', function (data) {
dataBuffer = Buffer.concat([dataBuffer, data]);
var dataLen = dataBuffer.readIntBE(0, 2);
while(dataBuffer.length >= dataLen) {
// Message length excluding length prefix of 2 bytes
var msgLen = dataBuffer.readIntBE(0, 2);
var thisMsg = new Buffer(dataBuffer.slice(2, msgLen + 2));
//do something with the msg here
// Remove processed message from buffer
dataBuffer = dataBuffer.slice(msgLen + 2);
}
});
You should also be aware of that when sending multiple protobufs on a TCP socket, they are likely to be buffered for network optimizations (concatenated) and sent together. Meaning some sort of delimiter is needed anyway.

How to represent header value and actual message in Byte Array Java?

I need to make a byte array in which I will have header values initially and my actual message will come after the header values.
My header values will have - data center which is a string, client_id which is integer, pool_id which is also integer and data_count is also an integer.
And my actual message which will come after header values is - hello world
In my case, my header length may grow so I need to initialize that as a variable so that I can increase it later on as needed.
I am little bit confuse in how to use Byte Array here. How can I represent this in a byte array in network byte order so that c++ program can decode this out properly on ubuntu 12.04 machine?

You can use Protocol Buffers to represent the messages (header and content). It will handle the transformations between languages and different platforms. Also, it is providing room for further expansion and support for multiple message versions.
For your example you can define the message format like (eg. messageModel.proto):
package common;
option java_package = "my.java.package";
option java_outer_classname = "MessageProto";
message MyMessage {
optional string dataCenter = 1 [default = DEFAULT_DC];
optional int64 clientId = 2;
optional int64 poolId = 3;
optional int64 dataCount = 4;
optional string body = 5;
}
Then using the protoc compile like:
protoc -I src/java/ --java_out=src/java/ messageModel.proto
You will generate the transport objects and the utility classes to marshal them from one endpoint to another (representing different messages even). Please check the java tutorial for more details.
To create a MyMessage from java you will be able to do something like:
MessageProto.MyMessage.Builder mb = MessageProto.MyMessage.newBuilder();
mb.setDataCenter("aDC");
mb.setClientId(12);
mb.setPoolId(14);
mb.setDataCount(2);
mb.setbody("hello world");
MessageProto.MyMessage message = mb.build();
To transform the message into a byte array, you will use: message.toByteArray()
If C++/C is your destination you will need to generate (from the same model) the C builders and objects too. And to decode the message you will do something like:
MessageProto.MyMessage message = MessageProto.MyMessage.parseFrom(buffer);
Where buffer will represent the received content.
If this is only a homework assignment then you can serialize your header and body message using
a DataOutputStream, but I would suggest investigating Protocol Buffers as well.

Try using a DataOutputStream that is targeted to a ByteArrayOutputStream. When you're done with writing the message to the DataOutputStream, you can obtain the constructed byte array from the ByteArrayOutputStream.
Like this:
ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
DataOutputStream dos = new DataOutputStream(baos);
dos.writeInt(client_id);
dos.writeUTF(data_center);
// etc...
byte[] message = baos.toByteArray();
Protocol Buffers are also a good option, if you want more flexibility and higher performance. It depends on what you want to get out of this application; if it needs higher performance, or whether it's a one-off throwaway app or something that you expect to grow and be maintained in the longer future. DataOutputStream and DataInputStream are simple to use and you can start right away, you need to invest a bit more of your time to learn Protocol Buffers.

Protocol Buffer: From Java to Objective-C using byte[]

I am currently using google's protocol buffers. It works painlessly between Java and C#, however I am running into problems trying to achieve the same use with Obj-c.
The Java WS returns a byte[]. The code that uses the protocol buffer API is simple enough:
productGroup.toByteArray();
I am able to recreate the object with Skeet's C# port, using:
byte[] result = searchWebService.SearchProductsProtocolBuffer(search);
ProductProtoGroup products = ProductProtoGroup.ParseFrom(result);
However, on the obj-c side, I am struggling to work with the return value.
The NSString I receive from the same web service RPC is this:
CmYKEzgwMDAwMUFELTEzMjUyNzk5MTQySUZPT0QgJiBCRV...
I'm not quite sure what to do with this, because I don't know what it is, save it was generated from an array of bytes. I tried parsing it directly to NSData using
NSData* data = [returnValue dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
but on [ProductProtoGroup parseFromData:data];, I get an InvalidProtocolBuffer
I've checked on the Java side what byte string/hexadecimal representations of the original byte[], and it doesn't match the string I receive from the ws.
Hexadecimal is 0-F. Perhaps each byte was converted to a char? No, that doesn't match.
Any help would be appreciated.
Dane

With a fresher mind and some helpful comments, I finally got it.
I was wondering how the web service automagically sent a byte[] in Java, then reconstructed it in C# later, and also how to store this message later.
Turns out the string,
CmYKEzgwMDAwMUFELTEzMjUyNzk5MTQySUZPT0QgJiBCRV...
was indeed what was being sent in the soap envelopes. So inbetween creation of a byte[] in Java and transmission, something was happening. Looking at the message handler in C#,
[System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapDocumentMethodAttribute("",
RequestNamespace="x", ResponseNamespace="x",
Use=System.Web.Services.Description.SoapBindingUse.Literal,
ParameterStyle=System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapParameterStyle.Wrapped)]
[return: System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("return",
Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified,
DataType="base64Binary", IsNullable=true)]
public byte[] searchProductProtocolBuffer([System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)] string arg0)
{
object[] results = this.Invoke("searchProductProtocolBuffer", new object[] {
arg0});
return ((byte[])(results[0]));
}
So base64Binary!, which I admittedly am meeting for the first time. Poking around, Skeet says it is the safest way:
How can I safely convert a byte array into a string and back?
So, knowing the encoding, the solution becomes straight forward. Using the algorithm presented in an answer to this question: How do I do base64 encoding on iphone-sdk?, my final code becomes:
NSString* returnValue = [WebServiceUtil processStringReturnValue:value];
NSData* data = [Encoding base64DataFromString:returnValue];
ProductProtoGroup* products = [ProductProtoGroup parseFromData:data];

I know very little about Objective C, but an NSString is no byte array. Have you tried converting the NSString to char* using -[NSString UTF8String]?

Jsch: Is there way to send Control Character

I am using Jsch to connect sshd server and I am new in this area. I successfully send non-control character such as, a, b ...so-on. However, I need to send "Esc" key command (Control Character) to perform specific task. According to the link, I tried several ways (by passing "27", "0033", "0x1b", and "^[") but did not work.
I have found a link to use sshj. Is there way to send Control Character using Jsch?
Thanks M.F.H

How about following snippet?
byte[] esc = { (byte)0x1b };
out.write(esc);
out.flush();
JCTerm, which is using JSch, has following definitions,
byte[] ENTER = {(byte)0x0d};
byte[] UP = {(byte)0x1b, (byte)0x4f, (byte)0x41};
byte[] DOWN = {(byte)0x1b, (byte)0x4f, (byte)0x42};
byte[] RIGHT = {(byte)0x1b, (byte)0x4f, (byte)0x43};
byte[] LEFT = {(byte)0x1b, (byte)0x4f, (byte)0x44};
....

Thanks. I have figured out this issue a little different way. I am sending character to VT100 terminal using JSCH to perform specific tasks. In the code, all inputs are converted to array of byte but the ASCII control character cannot be sent as a array of byte to VT100 terminal. According to post, I have to send control character as ASCII code (INT). Such as, If VT100 terminal needs ESC command then 27 (INT) must be written in the SSH Session input stream. ESC's ASCII code is 27. (Before, I sent 27 as string and converted to array of byte.)