Develop Reference

reading UTF-16 produces unexpected results

I use the beaglebuddy Java library in an Android project for reading/writing ID3 tags of mp3 files. I'm having an issue with reading the text that was previously written using the same library and could not find anything related in their docs.
Assume I write the following info:
MP3 mp3 = new MP3(pathToFile);
mp3.setLeadPerformer("Jon Skeet");
mp3.setTitle("A Million Rep");
mp3.save();
Looking at the source code of the library, I see that UTF-16 encoding is explicitly set, internally it calls
protected ID3v23Frame setV23Text(String text, FrameType frameType) {
return this.setV23Text(Encoding.UTF_16, text, frameType);
}
and
protected ID3v23Frame setV23Text(Encoding encoding, String text, FrameType frameType) {
ID3v23FrameBodyTextInformation frameBody = null;
ID3v23Frame frame = this.getV23Frame(frameType);
if(frame == null) {
frame = this.addV23Frame(frameType);
}
frameBody = (ID3v23FrameBodyTextInformation)frame.getBody();
frameBody.setEncoding(encoding);
frameBody.setText(encoding == Encoding.UTF_16?Utility.getUTF16String(text):text);
return frame;
}
At a later point, I read the data and it gives me some weird Chinese characters:
mp3.getLeadPerformer(); // 䄀 䴀椀氀氀椀漀渀 刀攀瀀
mp3.getTitle(); // 䨀漀渀 匀欀攀攀琀
I took a look at the built-in Utility.getUTF16String(String) method:
public static String getUTF16String(String string) {
String text = string;
byte[] bytes = string.getBytes(Encoding.UTF_16.getCharacterSet());
if(bytes.length < 2 || bytes[0] != -2 || bytes[1] != -1) {
byte[] bytez = new byte[bytes.length + 2];
bytes[0] = -2;
bytes[1] = -1;
System.arraycopy(bytes, 0, bytez, 2, bytes.length);
text = new String(bytez, Encoding.UTF_16.getCharacterSet());
}
return text;
}
I'm not quite getting the point of setting the first 2 bytes to -2 and -1 respectively, is this a pattern stating that the string is UTF-16 encoded?
However, I tried to explicitly call this method when reading the data, that seems to be readable, but always prepends some cryptic characters at the start:
Utility.getUTF16String(mp3.getLeadPerformer()); // ��Jon Skeet
Utility.getUTF16String(mp3.getTitle()); // ��A Million Rep
Since the count of those characters seems to be constant, I created a temporary workaround by simply cutting them off.
Fields like "comments" where the author does not explicitly enforce UTF-16 when writing are read without any issues.
I'm really curious about what's going on here and appreciate any suggestions.

Sending messages to java server in objective-c via AsyncSocket

Hi I am trying to send messages to a Java server that I cannot change from an iOS device. I am using AsyncSocket and was wondering how to send and receive the length appended to the string. I am doing a UTF conversion of the string to NSData however I was wondering if there is a difference in the size of the primitive between the two languages. Also is there a big endian and little endian variation? Basically I need to be able to convert the following java methods:
inStream.readUTF();
inStream.readInt();
inStream.readChar();
inStream.readShort();
inStream.readFully(recvBuff, 0, recvLen);
outStream.writeInt();
outStream.writeUTF();
outStream.writeChars();
outStream.writeShort();
outStream.write(sendBytes, 0, sendBytes.length);
I know I am very close but something is not quite right, this is what I have got so far:
I am using an NSMutableArray to append the data and the using AsyncSockets read and write methods.
[theSocket readDataToData:[AsyncSocket ZeroData] withTimeout:timeout buffer:buffer bufferOffset:offset tag:tag]; // inStream.readUTF();
[theSocket readDataToLength:sizeof(int32_t) withTimeout:timeout buffer:buffer bufferOffset:offset tag:tag]; // inStream.readInt();
[theSocket readDataToLength:sizeof(unichar) withTimeout:timeout buffer:buffer bufferOffset:offset tag:tag]; // inStream.readChar();
[theSocket readDataToLength:sizeof(int16_t) withTimeout:timeout tag:tag]; // inStream.readShort();
[theSocket readDataWithTimeout:timeout buffer:buffer bufferOffset:offset maxLength:maxLength tag:tag]; // inStream.readFully(recvBuff, 0, recvLen);
[outputBufferStream appendBytes:&[sendString length] length:sizeof([sendString length])]; // outStream.writeInt();
[outputBufferStream appendData:[sendString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]] // outStream.writeUTF();
char array[5];
[outputBufferStream appendBytes:array length:sizeof(array)]; // outStream.writeChars();
int16_t _short;
[outputBufferStream appendBytes:&_short length:sizeof(_short)]; // outStream.writeShort();
unsigned char *sendBytes;
[outputBufferStream appendBytes:sendBytes length:sendBytesLength]; // outStream.write(sendBytes, 0, sendBytes.length);
I usually append the length at the beginning like so:
int32_t sendStringLength = [sendString length];
[outputBufferStream appendBytes:&sendStringLength length:sizeof(sendStringLength)];
At the end of the write i am appending the following as a terminator:
[outputBufferStream appendData:[#"\n" dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
I would really appreciate any help with this. Thanks.
EDIT::
I have got most of it working thanks to Robadob. Here is a little java snippet (working) of the bit i am currently stuck trying to get working on Objective-C:
private int sendData(String stringToSend) {
if (theSocket==null) {
lastError="sendData() called before socket was set up.";
return 1; // Error
}
try {
System.out.println("Sending "+stringToSend.length()+" chars ["+ stringToSend.length()*2+" bytes]");
System.out.println("'" + stringToSend + "'");
outStream.writeInt(stringToSend.length()*2);
outStream.writeChars(stringToSend);
outStream.flush();
} catch (IOException e) {
lastError="sendData() exception: "+e;
System.out.println(lastError);
return 2; // Error
}
return 0; // Ok
}
Here is a snippet of what I have got so far in Objective-C:
- (int32_t)sendData:(NSString *)stringToSend {
if (theSocket == nil) {
lastError = #"sendData called before socket was set up";
return 1; // Error
}
#try {
NSLog(#"Sending %d chars [%d bytes]", [stringToSend length], ([stringToSend length] * 2));
NSLog(#"'%#'", stringToSend);
uint32_t stringToSendInt = ([stringToSend length] * 2);
uint32_t stringToSendIntBigE = CFSwapInt32HostToBig(stringToSendInt);
[outputBufferStream appendBytes:&stringToSendIntBigE length:sizeof(stringToSendIntBigE)];
stringToSend = [stringToSend stringByAppendingString:#"\n"];
for (int i = 0; i < ([stringToSend length]); i++) {
unichar characterTmp = [stringToSend characterAtIndex:i];
unichar character = characterTmp << 8;
[outputBufferStream appendBytes:&character length:sizeof(character)];
}
[self syncWriteData:outputBufferStream withTimeout:socketTimeout tag:kSendDataSocketTag];
outputBufferStream = [NSMutableData data];
}
#catch (NSException *e) {
lastError = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"sendData exception: %#", [e reason]];
NSLog(#"%#", lastError);
return 2; // Error
}
return 0; // Ok
}

If you read the docs for writeUTF it says it writes the first 2 bytes using writeShort. This says
Writes a short to the underlying output stream as two bytes, high byte
first. If no exception is thrown, the counter written is incremented
by 2.
A byte is 8 bits, so that makes the value they are writing is 16 bits, you are using int32_t, which is 32 bits. you should be writing an int16 or int16_t (I don't objective-c).

Generating a .ov2 file with Java

I am trying to figure out how to create a .ov2 file to add POI data to a TomTom GPS device. The format of the data needs to be as follow:
An OV2 file consists of POI records. Each record has the following data format.
1 BYTE, char, POI status ('0' or '2')
4 BYTES, long, denotes length of the POI record.
4 BYTES, long, longitude * 100000
4 BYTES, long, latitude * 100000
x BYTES, string, label for POI, x =3D=3D total length =96 (1 + 3 * 4)
Terminating null byte.
I found the following PHP code that is supposed to take a .csv file, go through it line by line, split each record and then write it into a new file in the proper format. I was hoping someone would be able to help me translate this to Java. I really only need the line I marked with the '--->' arrow. I do not know PHP at all, but everything other than that one line is basic enough that I can look at it and translate it, but I do not know what the PHP functions are doing on that one line. Even if someone could explain it well enough then maybe I could figure it out in Java. If you can translate it directly, please do, but even an explanation would be helpful. Thanks.
<?php
$csv = file("File.csv");
$nbcsv = count($csv);
$file = "POI.ov2";
$fp = fopen($file, "w");
for ($i = 0; $i < $nbcsv; $i++) {
$table = split(",", chop($csv[$i]));
$lon = $table[0];
$lat = $table[1];
$des = $table[2];
--->$TT = chr(0x02).pack("V",strlen($des)+14).pack("V",round($lon*100000)).pack("V",round($lat*100000)).$des.chr(0x00);
#fwrite($fp, "$TT");
}
fclose($fp);
?>

Load a file into an array, where each element is a line from the file.
$csv = file("File.csv");
Count the number of elements in the array.
$nbcsv = count($csv);
Open output file for writing.
$file = "POI.ov2";
$fp = fopen($file, "w");
While $i < number of array items, $i++
for ($i = 0; $i < $nbcsv; $i++) {
Right trim the line (remove all whitespace), and split the string by ','. $table is an array of values from the csv line.
$table = split(",", chop($csv[$i]));
Assign component parts of the table to their own variables by numeric index.
$lon = $table[0];
$lat = $table[1];
$des = $table[2];
The tricky bit.
chr(02) is literally character code number 2.
pack is a binary processing function. It takes a format and some data.
V = unsigned long (always 32 bit, little endian byte order).
I'm sure you can work out the maths bits, but you need to convert them into little endian order 32 bit values.
. is a string concat operator.
Finally it is terminated with chr(0). Null char.
$TT = chr(0x02).
pack("V",strlen($des)+14).
pack("V",round($lon*100000)).
pack("V",round($lat*100000)).
$des.chr(0x00);
Write it out and close the file.
#fwrite($fp, "$TT");
}
fclose($fp);

The key in JAVA is to apply proper byte order ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN to the ByteBuffer.
The whole function:
private static boolean getWaypoints(ArrayList<Waypoint> geopoints, File f)
{
try{
FileOutputStream fs = new FileOutputStream(f);
for (int i=0;i<geopoints.size();i++)
{
fs.write((byte)0x02);
String desc = geopoints.get(i).getName();
int poiLength = desc.toString().length()+14;
fs.write(ByteBuffer.allocate(4).order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN).putInt(poiLength).array());
int lon = (int)Math.round((geopoints.get(i).getLongitudeE6()/1E6)*100000);
fs.write(ByteBuffer.allocate(4).order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN).putInt(lon).array());
int lat = (int)Math.round((geopoints.get(i).getLatitudeE6()/1E6)*100000);
fs.write(ByteBuffer.allocate(4).order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN).putInt(lat).array());
fs.write(desc.toString().getBytes());
fs.write((byte)0x00);
}
fs.close();
return true;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
return false;
}
}

Are there C++ equivalents for the Protocol Buffers delimited I/O functions in Java?

I'm trying to read / write multiple Protocol Buffers messages from files, in both C++ and Java. Google suggests writing length prefixes before the messages, but there's no way to do that by default (that I could see).
However, the Java API in version 2.1.0 received a set of "Delimited" I/O functions which apparently do that job:
parseDelimitedFrom
mergeDelimitedFrom
writeDelimitedTo
Are there C++ equivalents? And if not, what's the wire format for the size prefixes the Java API attaches, so I can parse those messages in C++?
Update:
These now exist in google/protobuf/util/delimited_message_util.h as of v3.3.0.

I'm a bit late to the party here, but the below implementations include some optimizations missing from the other answers and will not fail after 64MB of input (though it still enforces the 64MB limit on each individual message, just not on the whole stream).
(I am the author of the C++ and Java protobuf libraries, but I no longer work for Google. Sorry that this code never made it into the official lib. This is what it would look like if it had.)
bool writeDelimitedTo(
const google::protobuf::MessageLite& message,
google::protobuf::io::ZeroCopyOutputStream* rawOutput) {
// We create a new coded stream for each message. Don't worry, this is fast.
google::protobuf::io::CodedOutputStream output(rawOutput);
// Write the size.
const int size = message.ByteSize();
output.WriteVarint32(size);
uint8_t* buffer = output.GetDirectBufferForNBytesAndAdvance(size);
if (buffer != NULL) {
// Optimization: The message fits in one buffer, so use the faster
// direct-to-array serialization path.
message.SerializeWithCachedSizesToArray(buffer);
} else {
// Slightly-slower path when the message is multiple buffers.
message.SerializeWithCachedSizes(&output);
if (output.HadError()) return false;
}
return true;
}
bool readDelimitedFrom(
google::protobuf::io::ZeroCopyInputStream* rawInput,
google::protobuf::MessageLite* message) {
// We create a new coded stream for each message. Don't worry, this is fast,
// and it makes sure the 64MB total size limit is imposed per-message rather
// than on the whole stream. (See the CodedInputStream interface for more
// info on this limit.)
google::protobuf::io::CodedInputStream input(rawInput);
// Read the size.
uint32_t size;
if (!input.ReadVarint32(&size)) return false;
// Tell the stream not to read beyond that size.
google::protobuf::io::CodedInputStream::Limit limit =
input.PushLimit(size);
// Parse the message.
if (!message->MergeFromCodedStream(&input)) return false;
if (!input.ConsumedEntireMessage()) return false;
// Release the limit.
input.PopLimit(limit);
return true;
}

Okay, so I haven't been able to find top-level C++ functions implementing what I need, but some spelunking through the Java API reference turned up the following, inside the MessageLite interface:
void writeDelimitedTo(OutputStream output)
/* Like writeTo(OutputStream), but writes the size of
the message as a varint before writing the data. */
So the Java size prefix is a (Protocol Buffers) varint!
Armed with that information, I went digging through the C++ API and found the CodedStream header, which has these:
bool CodedInputStream::ReadVarint32(uint32 * value)
void CodedOutputStream::WriteVarint32(uint32 value)
Using those, I should be able to roll my own C++ functions that do the job.
They should really add this to the main Message API though; it's missing functionality considering Java has it, and so does Marc Gravell's excellent protobuf-net C# port (via SerializeWithLengthPrefix and DeserializeWithLengthPrefix).

I solved the same problem using CodedOutputStream/ArrayOutputStream to write the message (with the size) and CodedInputStream/ArrayInputStream to read the message (with the size).
For example, the following pseudo-code writes the message size following by the message:
const unsigned bufLength = 256;
unsigned char buffer[bufLength];
Message protoMessage;
google::protobuf::io::ArrayOutputStream arrayOutput(buffer, bufLength);
google::protobuf::io::CodedOutputStream codedOutput(&arrayOutput);
codedOutput.WriteLittleEndian32(protoMessage.ByteSize());
protoMessage.SerializeToCodedStream(&codedOutput);
When writing you should also check that your buffer is large enough to fit the message (including the size). And when reading, you should check that your buffer contains a whole message (including the size).
It definitely would be handy if they added convenience methods to C++ API similar to those provided by the Java API.

IsteamInputStream is very fragile to eofs and other errors that easily occurs when used together with std::istream. After this the protobuf streams are permamently damaged and any already used buffer data is destroyed. There are proper support for reading from traditional streams in protobuf.
Implement google::protobuf::io::CopyingInputStream and use that together with CopyingInputStreamAdapter. Do the same for the output variants.
In practice a parsing call ends up in google::protobuf::io::CopyingInputStream::Read(void* buffer, int size) where a buffer is given. The only thing left to do is read into it somehow.
Here's an example for use with Asio synchronized streams (SyncReadStream/SyncWriteStream):
#include <google/protobuf/io/zero_copy_stream_impl_lite.h>
using namespace google::protobuf::io;
template <typename SyncReadStream>
class AsioInputStream : public CopyingInputStream {
public:
AsioInputStream(SyncReadStream& sock);
int Read(void* buffer, int size);
private:
SyncReadStream& m_Socket;
};
template <typename SyncReadStream>
AsioInputStream<SyncReadStream>::AsioInputStream(SyncReadStream& sock) :
m_Socket(sock) {}
template <typename SyncReadStream>
int
AsioInputStream<SyncReadStream>::Read(void* buffer, int size)
{
std::size_t bytes_read;
boost::system::error_code ec;
bytes_read = m_Socket.read_some(boost::asio::buffer(buffer, size), ec);
if(!ec) {
return bytes_read;
} else if (ec == boost::asio::error::eof) {
return 0;
} else {
return -1;
}
}
template <typename SyncWriteStream>
class AsioOutputStream : public CopyingOutputStream {
public:
AsioOutputStream(SyncWriteStream& sock);
bool Write(const void* buffer, int size);
private:
SyncWriteStream& m_Socket;
};
template <typename SyncWriteStream>
AsioOutputStream<SyncWriteStream>::AsioOutputStream(SyncWriteStream& sock) :
m_Socket(sock) {}
template <typename SyncWriteStream>
bool
AsioOutputStream<SyncWriteStream>::Write(const void* buffer, int size)
{
boost::system::error_code ec;
m_Socket.write_some(boost::asio::buffer(buffer, size), ec);
return !ec;
}
Usage:
AsioInputStream<boost::asio::ip::tcp::socket> ais(m_Socket); // Where m_Socket is a instance of boost::asio::ip::tcp::socket
CopyingInputStreamAdaptor cis_adp(&ais);
CodedInputStream cis(&cis_adp);
Message protoMessage;
uint32_t msg_size;
/* Read message size */
if(!cis.ReadVarint32(&msg_size)) {
// Handle error
}
/* Make sure not to read beyond limit of message */
CodedInputStream::Limit msg_limit = cis.PushLimit(msg_size);
if(!msg.ParseFromCodedStream(&cis)) {
// Handle error
}
/* Remove limit */
cis.PopLimit(msg_limit);

Here you go:
#include <google/protobuf/io/zero_copy_stream_impl.h>
#include <google/protobuf/io/coded_stream.h>
using namespace google::protobuf::io;
class FASWriter
{
std::ofstream mFs;
OstreamOutputStream *_OstreamOutputStream;
CodedOutputStream *_CodedOutputStream;
public:
FASWriter(const std::string &file) : mFs(file,std::ios::out | std::ios::binary)
{
assert(mFs.good());
_OstreamOutputStream = new OstreamOutputStream(&mFs);
_CodedOutputStream = new CodedOutputStream(_OstreamOutputStream);
}
inline void operator()(const ::google::protobuf::Message &msg)
{
_CodedOutputStream->WriteVarint32(msg.ByteSize());
if ( !msg.SerializeToCodedStream(_CodedOutputStream) )
std::cout << "SerializeToCodedStream error " << std::endl;
}
~FASWriter()
{
delete _CodedOutputStream;
delete _OstreamOutputStream;
mFs.close();
}
};
class FASReader
{
std::ifstream mFs;
IstreamInputStream *_IstreamInputStream;
CodedInputStream *_CodedInputStream;
public:
FASReader(const std::string &file), mFs(file,std::ios::in | std::ios::binary)
{
assert(mFs.good());
_IstreamInputStream = new IstreamInputStream(&mFs);
_CodedInputStream = new CodedInputStream(_IstreamInputStream);
}
template<class T>
bool ReadNext()
{
T msg;
unsigned __int32 size;
bool ret;
if ( ret = _CodedInputStream->ReadVarint32(&size) )
{
CodedInputStream::Limit msgLimit = _CodedInputStream->PushLimit(size);
if ( ret = msg.ParseFromCodedStream(_CodedInputStream) )
{
_CodedInputStream->PopLimit(msgLimit);
std::cout << mFeed << " FASReader ReadNext: " << msg.DebugString() << std::endl;
}
}
return ret;
}
~FASReader()
{
delete _CodedInputStream;
delete _IstreamInputStream;
mFs.close();
}
};

I ran into the same issue in both C++ and Python.
For the C++ version, I used a mix of the code Kenton Varda posted on this thread and the code from the pull request he sent to the protobuf team (because the version posted here doesn't handle EOF while the one he sent to github does).
#include <google/protobuf/message_lite.h>
#include <google/protobuf/io/zero_copy_stream.h>
#include <google/protobuf/io/coded_stream.h>
bool writeDelimitedTo(const google::protobuf::MessageLite& message,
google::protobuf::io::ZeroCopyOutputStream* rawOutput)
{
// We create a new coded stream for each message. Don't worry, this is fast.
google::protobuf::io::CodedOutputStream output(rawOutput);
// Write the size.
const int size = message.ByteSize();
output.WriteVarint32(size);
uint8_t* buffer = output.GetDirectBufferForNBytesAndAdvance(size);
if (buffer != NULL)
{
// Optimization: The message fits in one buffer, so use the faster
// direct-to-array serialization path.
message.SerializeWithCachedSizesToArray(buffer);
}
else
{
// Slightly-slower path when the message is multiple buffers.
message.SerializeWithCachedSizes(&output);
if (output.HadError())
return false;
}
return true;
}
bool readDelimitedFrom(google::protobuf::io::ZeroCopyInputStream* rawInput, google::protobuf::MessageLite* message, bool* clean_eof)
{
// We create a new coded stream for each message. Don't worry, this is fast,
// and it makes sure the 64MB total size limit is imposed per-message rather
// than on the whole stream. (See the CodedInputStream interface for more
// info on this limit.)
google::protobuf::io::CodedInputStream input(rawInput);
const int start = input.CurrentPosition();
if (clean_eof)
*clean_eof = false;
// Read the size.
uint32_t size;
if (!input.ReadVarint32(&size))
{
if (clean_eof)
*clean_eof = input.CurrentPosition() == start;
return false;
}
// Tell the stream not to read beyond that size.
google::protobuf::io::CodedInputStream::Limit limit = input.PushLimit(size);
// Parse the message.
if (!message->MergeFromCodedStream(&input)) return false;
if (!input.ConsumedEntireMessage()) return false;
// Release the limit.
input.PopLimit(limit);
return true;
}
And here is my python2 implementation:
from google.protobuf.internal import encoder
from google.protobuf.internal import decoder
#I had to implement this because the tools in google.protobuf.internal.decoder
#read from a buffer, not from a file-like objcet
def readRawVarint32(stream):
mask = 0x80 # (1 << 7)
raw_varint32 = []
while 1:
b = stream.read(1)
#eof
if b == "":
break
raw_varint32.append(b)
if not (ord(b) & mask):
#we found a byte starting with a 0, which means it's the last byte of this varint
break
return raw_varint32
def writeDelimitedTo(message, stream):
message_str = message.SerializeToString()
delimiter = encoder._VarintBytes(len(message_str))
stream.write(delimiter + message_str)
def readDelimitedFrom(MessageType, stream):
raw_varint32 = readRawVarint32(stream)
message = None
if raw_varint32:
size, _ = decoder._DecodeVarint32(raw_varint32, 0)
data = stream.read(size)
if len(data) < size:
raise Exception("Unexpected end of file")
message = MessageType()
message.ParseFromString(data)
return message
#In place version that takes an already built protobuf object
#In my tests, this is around 20% faster than the other version
#of readDelimitedFrom()
def readDelimitedFrom_inplace(message, stream):
raw_varint32 = readRawVarint32(stream)
if raw_varint32:
size, _ = decoder._DecodeVarint32(raw_varint32, 0)
data = stream.read(size)
if len(data) < size:
raise Exception("Unexpected end of file")
message.ParseFromString(data)
return message
else:
return None
It might not be the best looking code and I'm sure it can be refactored a fair bit, but at least that should show you one way to do it.
Now the big problem: It's SLOW.
Even when using the C++ implementation of python-protobuf, it's one order of magnitude slower than in pure C++. I have a benchmark where I read 10M protobuf messages of ~30 bytes each from a file. It takes ~0.9s in C++, and 35s in python.
One way to make it a bit faster would be to re-implement the varint decoder to make it read from a file and decode in one go, instead of reading from a file and then decoding as this code currently does. (profiling shows that a significant amount of time is spent in the varint encoder/decoder). But needless to say that alone is not enough to close the gap between the python version and the C++ version.
Any idea to make it faster is very welcome :)

Just for completeness, I post here an up-to-date version that works with the master version of protobuf and Python3
For the C++ version it is sufficient to use the utils in delimited_message_utils.h, here a MWE
#include <google/protobuf/io/zero_copy_stream_impl.h>
#include <google/protobuf/util/delimited_message_util.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
template <typename T>
bool writeManyToFile(std::deque<T> messages, std::string filename) {
int outfd = open(filename.c_str(), O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC);
google::protobuf::io::FileOutputStream fout(outfd);
bool success;
for (auto msg: messages) {
success = google::protobuf::util::SerializeDelimitedToZeroCopyStream(
msg, &fout);
if (! success) {
std::cout << "Writing Failed" << std::endl;
break;
}
}
fout.Close();
close(outfd);
return success;
}
template <typename T>
std::deque<T> readManyFromFile(std::string filename) {
int infd = open(filename.c_str(), O_RDONLY);
google::protobuf::io::FileInputStream fin(infd);
bool keep = true;
bool clean_eof = true;
std::deque<T> out;
while (keep) {
T msg;
keep = google::protobuf::util::ParseDelimitedFromZeroCopyStream(
&msg, &fin, nullptr);
if (keep)
out.push_back(msg);
}
fin.Close();
close(infd);
return out;
}
For the Python3 version, building on #fireboot 's answer, the only thing thing that needed modification is the decoding of raw_varint32
def getSize(raw_varint32):
result = 0
shift = 0
b = six.indexbytes(raw_varint32, 0)
result |= ((ord(b) & 0x7f) << shift)
return result
def readDelimitedFrom(MessageType, stream):
raw_varint32 = readRawVarint32(stream)
message = None
if raw_varint32:
size = getSize(raw_varint32)
data = stream.read(size)
if len(data) < size:
raise Exception("Unexpected end of file")
message = MessageType()
message.ParseFromString(data)
return message

Was also looking for a solution for this. Here's the core of our solution, assuming some java code wrote many MyRecord messages with writeDelimitedTo into a file. Open the file and loop, doing:
if(someCodedInputStream->ReadVarint32(&bytes)) {
CodedInputStream::Limit msgLimit = someCodedInputStream->PushLimit(bytes);
if(myRecord->ParseFromCodedStream(someCodedInputStream)) {
//do your stuff with the parsed MyRecord instance
} else {
//handle parse error
}
someCodedInputStream->PopLimit(msgLimit);
} else {
//maybe end of file
}
Hope it helps.

Working with an objective-c version of protocol-buffers, I ran into this exact issue. On sending from the iOS client to a Java based server that uses parseDelimitedFrom, which expects the length as the first byte, I needed to call writeRawByte to the CodedOutputStream first. Posting here to hopegully help others that run into this issue. While working through this issue, one would think that Google proto-bufs would come with a simply flag which does this for you...
Request* request = [rBuild build];
[self sendMessage:request];
}
- (void) sendMessage:(Request *) request {
//** get length
NSData* n = [request data];
uint8_t len = [n length];
PBCodedOutputStream* os = [PBCodedOutputStream streamWithOutputStream:outputStream];
//** prepend it to message, such that Request.parseDelimitedFrom(in) can parse it properly
[os writeRawByte:len];
[request writeToCodedOutputStream:os];
[os flush];
}

Since I'm not allowed to write this as a comment to Kenton Varda's answer above; I believe there is a bug in the code he posted (as well as in other answers which have been provided). The following code:
...
google::protobuf::io::CodedInputStream input(rawInput);
// Read the size.
uint32_t size;
if (!input.ReadVarint32(&size)) return false;
// Tell the stream not to read beyond that size.
google::protobuf::io::CodedInputStream::Limit limit =
input.PushLimit(size);
...
sets an incorrect limit because it does not take into account the size of the varint32 which has already been read from input. This can result in data loss/corruption as additional bytes are read from the stream which may be part of the next message. The usual way of handling this correctly is to delete the CodedInputStream used to read the size and create a new one for reading the payload:
...
uint32_t size;
{
google::protobuf::io::CodedInputStream input(rawInput);
// Read the size.
if (!input.ReadVarint32(&size)) return false;
}
google::protobuf::io::CodedInputStream input(rawInput);
// Tell the stream not to read beyond that size.
google::protobuf::io::CodedInputStream::Limit limit =
input.PushLimit(size);
...

You can use getline for reading a string from a stream, using the specified delimiter:
istream& getline ( istream& is, string& str, char delim );
(defined in the header)

How to determine if a String contains invalid encoded characters

Usage scenario
We have implemented a webservice that our web frontend developers use (via a php api) internally to display product data. On the website the user enters something (i.e. a query string). Internally the web site makes a call to the service via the api.
Note: We use restlet, not tomcat
Original Problem
Firefox 3.0.10 seems to respect the selected encoding in the browser and encode a url according to the selected encoding. This does result in different query strings for ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8.
Our web site forwards the input from the user and does not convert it (which it should), so it may make a call to the service via the api calling a webservice using a query string that contains german umlauts.
I.e. for a query part looking like
...v=abcädef
if "ISO-8859-1" is selected, the sent query part looks like
...v=abc%E4def
but if "UTF-8" is selected, the sent query part looks like
...v=abc%C3%A4def
Desired Solution
As we control the service, because we've implemented it, we want to check on server side wether the call contains non utf-8 characters, if so, respond with an 4xx http status
Current Solution In Detail
Check for each character ( == string.substring(i,i+1) )
if character.getBytes()[0] equals 63 for '?'
if Character.getType(character.charAt(0)) returns OTHER_SYMBOL
Code
protected List< String > getNonUnicodeCharacters( String s ) {
final List< String > result = new ArrayList< String >();
for ( int i = 0 , n = s.length() ; i < n ; i++ ) {
final String character = s.substring( i , i + 1 );
final boolean isOtherSymbol =
( int ) Character.OTHER_SYMBOL
== Character.getType( character.charAt( 0 ) );
final boolean isNonUnicode = isOtherSymbol
&& character.getBytes()[ 0 ] == ( byte ) 63;
if ( isNonUnicode )
result.add( character );
}
return result;
}
Question
Will this catch all invalid (non utf encoded) characters?
Does any of you have a better (easier) solution?
Note: I checked URLDecoder with the following code
final String[] test = new String[]{
"v=abc%E4def",
"v=abc%C3%A4def"
};
for ( int i = 0 , n = test.length ; i < n ; i++ ) {
System.out.println( java.net.URLDecoder.decode(test[i],"UTF-8") );
System.out.println( java.net.URLDecoder.decode(test[i],"ISO-8859-1") );
}
This prints:
v=abc?def
v=abcädef
v=abcädef
v=abcädef
and it does not throw an IllegalArgumentException sigh

I asked the same question,
Handling Character Encoding in URI on Tomcat
I recently found a solution and it works pretty well for me. You might want give it a try. Here is what you need to do,
Leave your URI encoding as Latin-1. On Tomcat, add URIEncoding="ISO-8859-1" to the Connector in server.xml.
If you have to manually URL decode, use Latin1 as charset also.
Use the fixEncoding() function to fix up encodings.
For example, to get a parameter from query string,
String name = fixEncoding(request.getParameter("name"));
You can do this always. String with correct encoding is not changed.
The code is attached. Good luck!
public static String fixEncoding(String latin1) {
try {
byte[] bytes = latin1.getBytes("ISO-8859-1");
if (!validUTF8(bytes))
return latin1;
return new String(bytes, "UTF-8");
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
// Impossible, throw unchecked
throw new IllegalStateException("No Latin1 or UTF-8: " + e.getMessage());
}
}
public static boolean validUTF8(byte[] input) {
int i = 0;
// Check for BOM
if (input.length >= 3 && (input[0] & 0xFF) == 0xEF
&& (input[1] & 0xFF) == 0xBB & (input[2] & 0xFF) == 0xBF) {
i = 3;
}
int end;
for (int j = input.length; i < j; ++i) {
int octet = input[i];
if ((octet & 0x80) == 0) {
continue; // ASCII
}
// Check for UTF-8 leading byte
if ((octet & 0xE0) == 0xC0) {
end = i + 1;
} else if ((octet & 0xF0) == 0xE0) {
end = i + 2;
} else if ((octet & 0xF8) == 0xF0) {
end = i + 3;
} else {
// Java only supports BMP so 3 is max
return false;
}
while (i < end) {
i++;
octet = input[i];
if ((octet & 0xC0) != 0x80) {
// Not a valid trailing byte
return false;
}
}
}
return true;
}
EDIT: Your approach doesn't work for various reasons. When there are encoding errors, you can't count on what you are getting from Tomcat. Sometimes you get � or ?. Other times, you wouldn't get anything, getParameter() returns null. Say you can check for "?", what happens your query string contains valid "?" ?
Besides, you shouldn't reject any request. This is not your user's fault. As I mentioned in my original question, browser may encode URL in either UTF-8 or Latin-1. User has no control. You need to accept both. Changing your servlet to Latin-1 will preserve all the characters, even if they are wrong, to give us a chance to fix it up or to throw it away.
The solution I posted here is not perfect but it's the best one we found so far.

You can use a CharsetDecoder configured to throw an exception if invalid chars are found:
CharsetDecoder UTF8Decoder =
Charset.forName("UTF8").newDecoder().onMalformedInput(CodingErrorAction.REPORT);
See CodingErrorAction.REPORT

This is what I used to check the encoding:
CharsetDecoder ebcdicDecoder = Charset.forName("IBM1047").newDecoder();
ebcdicDecoder.onMalformedInput(CodingErrorAction.REPORT);
ebcdicDecoder.onUnmappableCharacter(CodingErrorAction.REPORT);
CharBuffer out = CharBuffer.wrap(new char[3200]);
CoderResult result = ebcdicDecoder.decode(ByteBuffer.wrap(bytes), out, true);
if (result.isError() || result.isOverflow() ||
result.isUnderflow() || result.isMalformed() ||
result.isUnmappable())
{
System.out.println("Cannot decode EBCDIC");
}
else
{
CoderResult result = ebcdicDecoder.flush(out);
if (result.isOverflow())
System.out.println("Cannot decode EBCDIC");
if (result.isUnderflow())
System.out.println("Ebcdic decoded succefully ");
}
Edit: updated with Vouze suggestion

Replace all control chars into empty string
value = value.replaceAll("\\p{Cntrl}", "");

URLDecoder will decode to a given encoding. This should flag errors appropriately. However the documentation states:
There are two possible ways in which this decoder could deal with illegal strings. It could either leave illegal characters alone or it could throw an IllegalArgumentException. Which approach the decoder takes is left to the implementation.
So you should probably try it. Note also (from the decode() method documentation):
The World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation states that UTF-8 should be used. Not doing so may introduce incompatibilites
so there's something else to think about!
EDIT: Apache Commons URLDecode claims to throw appropriate exceptions for bad encodings.

I've been working on a similar "guess the encoding" problem. The best solution involves knowing the encoding. Barring that, you can make educated guesses to distinguish between UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1.
To answer the general question of how to detect if a string is properly encoded UTF-8, you can verify the following things:
No byte is 0x00, 0xC0, 0xC1, or in the range 0xF5-0xFF.
Tail bytes (0x80-0xBF) are always preceded by a head byte 0xC2-0xF4 or another tail byte.
Head bytes should correctly predict the number of tail bytes (e.g., any byte in 0xC2-0xDF should be followed by exactly one byte in the range 0x80-0xBF).
If a string passes all those tests, then it's interpretable as valid UTF-8. That doesn't guarantee that it is UTF-8, but it's a good predictor.
Legal input in ISO-8859-1 will likely have no control characters (0x00-0x1F and 0x80-0x9F) other than line separators. Looks like 0x7F isn't defined in ISO-8859-1 either.
(I'm basing this off of Wikipedia pages for UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1.)

You might want to include a known parameter in your requests, e.g. "...&encTest=ä€", to safely differentiate between the different encodings.

You need to setup the character encoding from the start. Try sending the proper Content-Type header, for example Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 to fix the right encoding. The standard conformance refers to utf-8 and utf-16 as the proper encoding for Web Services. Examine your response headers.
Also, at the server side — in the case which the browser do not handles properly the encoding sent by the server — force the encoding by allocating a new String. Also you can check each byte in the encoded utf-8 string by doing a single each_byte & 0x80, verifying the result as non zero.
boolean utfEncoded = true;
byte[] strBytes = queryString.getBytes();
for (int i = 0; i < strBytes.length(); i++) {
if ((strBytes[i] & 0x80) != 0) {
continue;
} else {
/* treat the string as non utf encoded */
utfEncoded = false;
break;
}
}
String realQueryString = utfEncoded ?
queryString : new String(queryString.getBytes(), "iso-8859-1");
Also, take a look on this article, I hope it would help you.

the following regular expression might be of interest for you:
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/185624
I use it in ruby as following:
module Encoding
UTF8RGX = /\A(
[\x09\x0A\x0D\x20-\x7E] # ASCII
| [\xC2-\xDF][\x80-\xBF] # non-overlong 2-byte
| \xE0[\xA0-\xBF][\x80-\xBF] # excluding overlongs
| [\xE1-\xEC\xEE\xEF][\x80-\xBF]{2} # straight 3-byte
| \xED[\x80-\x9F][\x80-\xBF] # excluding surrogates
| \xF0[\x90-\xBF][\x80-\xBF]{2} # planes 1-3
| [\xF1-\xF3][\x80-\xBF]{3} # planes 4-15
| \xF4[\x80-\x8F][\x80-\xBF]{2} # plane 16
)*\z/x unless defined? UTF8RGX
def self.utf8_file?(fileName)
count = 0
File.open("#{fileName}").each do |l|
count += 1
unless utf8_string?(l)
puts count.to_s + ": " + l
end
end
return true
end
def self.utf8_string?(a_string)
UTF8RGX === a_string
end
end

Try to use UTF-8 as a default as always in anywhere you can touch. (Database, memory, and UI)
One and single charset encoding could reduce a lot of problems, and actually it can speed up your web server performance. There are so many processing power and memory wasted to encoding/decoding.