hi,

I'm a dlang newbie, and I recently made a program that interacts with an RFID Reader, it's basically a Serial-Port communication model. And after 2 days, I finally got a working code like these:

```
    enum RCPCmd{
        RCPCMD_GET_REGION = 0x06,
        RCPCMD_SET_REGION = 0x07,
        RCPCMD_SYS_RESET = 0x08,
        ...........

        RCPCMD_START_AUTOREAD2 = 0x36,
        RCPCMD_STOP_AUTOREAD2 = 0x37,

        RCPCMD_WRITE_TYPEC_TAGDATA = 0x46,

        RCPCMD_FAIL = 0xFF
    }

    enum {
        RCPMSG_CMD = 0x00,
        RCPMSG_RESP = 0x01,
        RCPMSG_NOTIFY = 0x02
    }

    private struct RCProtocol
    {
        enum {
            RCPPKT_PRE = 0xBB,
            RCPPKT_END = 0x7E
        }

        align(1) struct RCPacketHdr {
            ubyte msgtype;
            ubyte cmdcode;
            ushort len;
        }

        /**
         * These kind of members will be need only for private var for making a cmd packet.
         * But access-able as a parsed result for a incomming packet.
         */
        ubyte preamble;
        RCPacketHdr hdr;
        ubyte[] payload; //ubyte[len] of payload.
        ubyte end;
        ushort crc16;

        ubyte[] makeCMDPacket(RCPCmd cmd, in ubyte[] data)
        {
            this.preamble = RCPPKT_PRE;
            this.hdr.msgtype = RCPMSG_CMD;
            this.hdr.cmdcode =  cast (ubyte) cmd;
            this.hdr.len = 0xffff & data.length;
            this.end = RCPPKT_END;
            this.payload = data.dup;

            ubyte [] pkt;
            pkt ~= this.hdr.msgtype;
            pkt ~= this.hdr.cmdcode;
            pkt ~= this.hdr.len >> 8;
            pkt ~= this.hdr.len & 0xff;
            pkt = this.preamble ~ pkt ~ this.payload ~ this.end;

            // calc crc16 for Preamble + HDR + Data + END
            this.crc16 = new RCPCRC16().calc(pkt);

            pkt ~= this.crc16 >> 8;
            pkt ~= this.crc16 & 0xff;

            return pkt;
        }

        int parseRespPacket(in ubyte[] recv)
        {
            const size_t len = recv.length;
            if (recv is null)
                return PARSE_ERR;

            if (len < 8)
                return PARSE_ERR_PKTLEN;

            if (recv[0] !is RCPPKT_PRE)
                return PARSE_ERR_PKTHEAD;

            this.preamble = recv[0];
            this.hdr.msgtype = recv[1];
            this.hdr.cmdcode = recv[2];
            this.hdr.len = (recv[3] << 8) + 0xff & recv[4];

            if ( this.hdr.len > (len - 8))
                return PARSE_ERR_PKT;

            this.end = recv[5+this.hdr.len];

            if (this.end != RCPPKT_END)
                return PARSE_ERR_PKT;

            this.payload = recv[5 .. (5+this.hdr.len)].dup;

            ubyte [] pkt;
            pkt ~= this.hdr.msgtype;
            pkt ~= this.hdr.cmdcode;
            pkt ~= this.hdr.len >> 8;
            pkt ~= this.hdr.len & 0xff;
            pkt = this.preamble ~ pkt ~ this.payload ~ this.end;

            // calc crc16 for Preamble + HDR + Data + END
            const ushort desired_crc = new RCPCRC16().calc(pkt);

            this.crc16 = (recv[6+this.hdr.len] << 8) + recv[7+this.hdr.len];
            if (this.crc16 != desired_crc) {
                writefln("-- PARSE ERR: CRC, desired = %04X, actuall is %04X", this.crc16, desired_crc);
                return PARSE_ERR_CRC;
            }

            return PARSE_OK;
        }
    }

```

It's basically a C-style code, and it works perfect, But I know that this is not a "D-way", So, any suggestions?

Thanks!

On Monday, December 18, 2017 03:00:47 Binghoo Dang via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
> hi,
>
> I'm a dlang newbie, and I recently made a program that interacts with an RFID Reader, it's basically a Serial-Port communication model. And after 2 days, I finally got a working code like these:
>
> ```
>      enum RCPCmd{
>          RCPCMD_GET_REGION = 0x06,
>          RCPCMD_SET_REGION = 0x07,
>          RCPCMD_SYS_RESET = 0x08,
>          ...........
>
>          RCPCMD_START_AUTOREAD2 = 0x36,
>          RCPCMD_STOP_AUTOREAD2 = 0x37,
>
>          RCPCMD_WRITE_TYPEC_TAGDATA = 0x46,
>
>          RCPCMD_FAIL = 0xFF
>      }
>
>      enum {
>          RCPMSG_CMD = 0x00,
>          RCPMSG_RESP = 0x01,
>          RCPMSG_NOTIFY = 0x02
>      }
>
>      private struct RCProtocol
>      {
>          enum {
>              RCPPKT_PRE = 0xBB,
>              RCPPKT_END = 0x7E
>          }
>
>          align(1) struct RCPacketHdr {
>              ubyte msgtype;
>              ubyte cmdcode;
>              ushort len;
>          }
>
>          /**
>           * These kind of members will be need only for private
> var for making a cmd packet.
>           * But access-able as a parsed result for a incomming
> packet.
>           */
>          ubyte preamble;
>          RCPacketHdr hdr;
>          ubyte[] payload; //ubyte[len] of payload.
>          ubyte end;
>          ushort crc16;
>
>          ubyte[] makeCMDPacket(RCPCmd cmd, in ubyte[] data)
>          {
>              this.preamble = RCPPKT_PRE;
>              this.hdr.msgtype = RCPMSG_CMD;
>              this.hdr.cmdcode =  cast (ubyte) cmd;
>              this.hdr.len = 0xffff & data.length;

Why are you using & instead of simply casting to ushort? Casting would be more idiomatic. Or you can use to!ushort if you want to verify the size at runtime and have a ConvException thrown if the value is too large.

>              this.end = RCPPKT_END;
>              this.payload = data.dup;
>
>              ubyte [] pkt;
>              pkt ~= this.hdr.msgtype;
>              pkt ~= this.hdr.cmdcode;
>              pkt ~= this.hdr.len >> 8;
>              pkt ~= this.hdr.len & 0xff;
>              pkt = this.preamble ~ pkt ~ this.payload ~ this.end;
>
>              // calc crc16 for Preamble + HDR + Data + END
>              this.crc16 = new RCPCRC16().calc(pkt);
>
>              pkt ~= this.crc16 >> 8;
>              pkt ~= this.crc16 & 0xff;
>
>              return pkt;
>          }
>
>          int parseRespPacket(in ubyte[] recv)
>          {
>              const size_t len = recv.length;
>              if (recv is null)
>                  return PARSE_ERR;
>
>              if (len < 8)
>                  return PARSE_ERR_PKTLEN;
>
>              if (recv[0] !is RCPPKT_PRE)
>                  return PARSE_ERR_PKTHEAD;
>
>              this.preamble = recv[0];
>              this.hdr.msgtype = recv[1];
>              this.hdr.cmdcode = recv[2];
>              this.hdr.len = (recv[3] << 8) + 0xff & recv[4];
>
>              if ( this.hdr.len > (len - 8))
>                  return PARSE_ERR_PKT;
>
>              this.end = recv[5+this.hdr.len];
>
>              if (this.end != RCPPKT_END)
>                  return PARSE_ERR_PKT;
>
>              this.payload = recv[5 .. (5+this.hdr.len)].dup;
>
>              ubyte [] pkt;
>              pkt ~= this.hdr.msgtype;
>              pkt ~= this.hdr.cmdcode;
>              pkt ~= this.hdr.len >> 8;
>              pkt ~= this.hdr.len & 0xff;
>              pkt = this.preamble ~ pkt ~ this.payload ~ this.end;
>
>              // calc crc16 for Preamble + HDR + Data + END
>              const ushort desired_crc = new RCPCRC16().calc(pkt);
>
>              this.crc16 = (recv[6+this.hdr.len] << 8) +
> recv[7+this.hdr.len];
>              if (this.crc16 != desired_crc) {
>                  writefln("-- PARSE ERR: CRC, desired = %04X,
> actuall is %04X", this.crc16, desired_crc);
>                  return PARSE_ERR_CRC;
>              }
>
>              return PARSE_OK;
>          }
>      }
>
> ```
>
> It's basically a C-style code, and it works perfect, But I know that this is not a "D-way", So, any suggestions?

I'd suggest that you check out std.bitmanip if you haven't.

https://dlang.org/phobos/std_bitmanip.html

append, peek, read, and write in particular are useful if you're putting various integral values into an array of ubyte[] or reading them from it. Glancing over what you have, I'm pretty sure that all of the bitshifts and bitwise &'s and can be removed by using append or write to write the data to the array and peek or read to read from it.

Also, as far as D style goes, variables and enum values are usually given camelCase names, whereas you've named your enum values in all uppercase and your variables names in all lowercase, and you've underscores in the middle of names. But of course, you can do what you want on that. It's just that if you make any libraries public (e.g. on code.dlang.org), it's better to follow the D naming guidelines for anything in the public API:

https://dlang.org/dstyle.html

- Jonathan M Davis

Thanks for your idea.

On Monday, 18 December 2017 at 05:08:24 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>>          ubyte[] makeCMDPacket(RCPCmd cmd, in ubyte[] data)
>>          {
>>              this.preamble = RCPPKT_PRE;
>>              this.hdr.msgtype = RCPMSG_CMD;
>>              this.hdr.cmdcode =  cast (ubyte) cmd;
>>              this.hdr.len = 0xffff & data.length;
>
> Why are you using & instead of simply casting to ushort? Casting would be more idiomatic. Or you can use to!ushort if you want to verify the size at runtime and have a ConvException thrown if the value is too large.
>

I'm using & because I'm using a C-Style. and the length needs to be packed into 2bytes, for casting, I don't know what will happen if data.length is greater. In C & C++, this kind of the cast will cause errors. I don't know what D will do for this.

>> ```
>>
>> It's basically a C-style code, and it works perfect, But I know that this is not a "D-way", So, any suggestions?
>
> I'd suggest that you check out std.bitmanip if you haven't.
>
> https://dlang.org/phobos/std_bitmanip.html
>
> append, peek, read, and write in particular are useful if you're putting various integral values into an array of ubyte[] or reading them from it. Glancing over what you have, I'm pretty sure that all of the bitshifts and bitwise &'s and can be removed by using append or write to write the data to the array and peek or read to read from it.
>
> Also, as far as D style goes, variables and enum values are usually given camelCase names, whereas you've named your enum values in all uppercase and your variables names in all lowercase, and you've underscores in the middle of names. But of course, you can do what you want on that. It's just that if you make any libraries public (e.g. on code.dlang.org), it's better to follow the D naming guidelines for anything in the public API:
>
> https://dlang.org/dstyle.html
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

Yeah, thanks for the suggestion, I will check bit manipulation more in detail. I just heard of that, but I just did a misunderstanding that I think that is for packing and unpacking of bits.

hi Davis,

I read the std.bitmanip, and I tried to test the code like below:

```
import std.stdio;
import std.array;
import std.bitmanip;
void main(string[] args)
{
    align(1) struct c {
        ushort c1;
        uint c2;
        //ubyte[8] c3;
    }
    ubyte[] buffer;
    auto ap = appender(&buffer);
    uint a = 0x11223344;
    ushort b = 0x6677;
    ap.append!uint(a);
    ap.append!ushort(b);

    c cobj;
    cobj.c1 = 0xEEFF;
    cobj.c2 = 0xDEADBEAF;
    //cobj.c3 = [0x12, 0x34, 0x56, 0x78];
    ap.append(cobj);

    ubyte[3] d = [0xAA, 0xBB, 0xCC];
    ap.append(d);

    foreach(e; buffer) {
        writef("%02X ", e);
    }
}
```
For compiling this code, I got error like this

> onlineapp.d(22): Error: template std.bitmanip.append cannot deduce function from >argument types !()(RefAppender!(ubyte[]), c), candidates are:
>/dlang/dmd/linux/bin64/../../src/phobos/std/bitmanip.d(3623):    
>    std.bitmanip.append(T, Endian endianness = Endian.bigEndian, 
>R)(R range, T value) >if (canSwapEndianness!T && isOutputRange!(R, ubyte))
>onlineapp.d(25): Error: template std.bitmanip.append cannot deduce function from >argument types !()(RefAppender!(ubyte[]), ubyte[3]), candidates are:
>/dlang/dmd/linux/bin64/../../src/phobos/std/bitmanip.d(3623):    
>    std.bitmanip.append(T, Endian endianness = Endian.bigEndian, 
>R)(R range, T value) >if (canSwapEndianness!T && isOutputRange!(R, ubyte))

It seems that the appending is just allow using the fundamental types like uint, ushort, it does not support struct, and can't support dynamic array too. As the hardware protocol is a dynamic-length style, so I also need to support append array or another buffer directly.

It seems that I can't get the point how to using the bitmanip to do the packing I need, and also I have no idea what the unpacking will look like.

Thanks!

On Monday, December 18, 2017 05:32:02 Binghoo Dang via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
> Thanks for your idea.
>
> On Monday, 18 December 2017 at 05:08:24 UTC, Jonathan M Davis
>
> wrote:
> >>          ubyte[] makeCMDPacket(RCPCmd cmd, in ubyte[] data)
> >>          {
> >>
> >>              this.preamble = RCPPKT_PRE;
> >>              this.hdr.msgtype = RCPMSG_CMD;
> >>              this.hdr.cmdcode =  cast (ubyte) cmd;
> >>              this.hdr.len = 0xffff & data.length;
> >
> > Why are you using & instead of simply casting to ushort? Casting would be more idiomatic. Or you can use to!ushort if you want to verify the size at runtime and have a ConvException thrown if the value is too large.
>
> I'm using & because I'm using a C-Style. and the length needs to be packed into 2bytes, for casting, I don't know what will happen if data.length is greater. In C & C++, this kind of the cast will cause errors. I don't know what D will do for this.

This assertion never fails:

void main()
{
    foreach(i; 0 .. uint.max)
        assert((i & 0xFFFF) == cast(ushort)i);
}

- Jonathan M Davis

On Monday, December 18, 2017 08:45:32 Binghoo Dang via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
> hi Davis,
>
> I read the std.bitmanip, and I tried to test the code like below:
>
> ```
> import std.stdio;
> import std.array;
> import std.bitmanip;
> void main(string[] args)
> {
>      align(1) struct c {
>          ushort c1;
>          uint c2;
>          //ubyte[8] c3;
>      }
>      ubyte[] buffer;
>      auto ap = appender(&buffer);
>      uint a = 0x11223344;
>      ushort b = 0x6677;
>      ap.append!uint(a);
>      ap.append!ushort(b);
>
>      c cobj;
>      cobj.c1 = 0xEEFF;
>      cobj.c2 = 0xDEADBEAF;
>      //cobj.c3 = [0x12, 0x34, 0x56, 0x78];
>      ap.append(cobj);
>
>      ubyte[3] d = [0xAA, 0xBB, 0xCC];
>      ap.append(d);
>
>      foreach(e; buffer) {
>          writef("%02X ", e);
>      }
> }
> ```
> For compiling this code, I got error like this
>
> > onlineapp.d(22): Error: template std.bitmanip.append cannot
> > deduce function from >argument types !()(RefAppender!(ubyte[]),
> >
> > c), candidates are:
> >/dlang/dmd/linux/bin64/../../src/phobos/std/bitmanip.d(3623):
> >    std.bitmanip.append(T, Endian endianness = Endian.bigEndian,
> >
> >R)(R range, T value) >if (canSwapEndianness!T &&
> >isOutputRange!(R, ubyte))
> >onlineapp.d(25): Error: template std.bitmanip.append cannot
> >deduce function from >argument types !()(RefAppender!(ubyte[]),
> >ubyte[3]), candidates are:
> >
> >/dlang/dmd/linux/bin64/../../src/phobos/std/bitmanip.d(3623):
> >    std.bitmanip.append(T, Endian endianness = Endian.bigEndian,
> >
> >R)(R range, T value) >if (canSwapEndianness!T &&
> >isOutputRange!(R, ubyte))
>
> It seems that the appending is just allow using the fundamental types like uint, ushort, it does not support struct, and can't support dynamic array too. As the hardware protocol is a dynamic-length style, so I also need to support append array or another buffer directly.
>
> It seems that I can't get the point how to using the bitmanip to do the packing I need, and also I have no idea what the unpacking will look like.

write, append, peek, and read all operate on integral types only. If you have an array of int or whatnot that you want to put into an array of ubyte, then just use a loop, and if you have a struct, then write or append each of the members individually. Those functions are for making it clean and easy to write integral types to an array or range of ubyte (or to read them back out again) while properly taking endianness into account, not for directly serializing objects.

I really don't know what to tell you if the examples in the docs aren't enough to figure out how to use the functions, because if I were trying to show you how, I'd give very similar examples, and I don't know why the docs wouldn't be clear as they are or how they could be made clearer for you.

- Jonathan M Davis

hi Davis,

Thanks for your great help to me!

Yeah, the library may had a design principle when it was designed, as you can see the buffer appender is not that suitable for an application-defined structured data packing.

And after I turn to the bitfield, I then got another trouble:

The bitfield template only allows (8, 64) bits to be packed, so in a real application, and obviously, in my application, the packet is greater than 8 bytes.

So, the appender and bitfield are not practical for my situation. And now, I realized that the problem what I have done is only using bit-shift other than using direct cast operator.

In C, one can directly cast a struct to memory bytes, for D, the struct can have methods, and the alignment is also more complex. So, I think that handy packing and unpacking elements in a struct to D array is just OK. And better than C, the D array is autoincremented, this feature already makes the thing more simpler to understand.

So, before I can write my own template for generating the packing and unpacking code, I would just remove the bit shit.

Again, Thank you very much!


On Thursday, 21 December 2017 at 12:21:55 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Monday, December 18, 2017 08:45:32 Binghoo Dang via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
>> hi Davis,
>>
>> I read the std.bitmanip, and I tried to test the code like below:
>>
>> ```
>> import std.stdio;
>> import std.array;
>> import std.bitmanip;
>> void main(string[] args)
>> {
>>      align(1) struct c {
>>          ushort c1;
>>          uint c2;
>>          //ubyte[8] c3;
>>      }
>>      ubyte[] buffer;
>>      auto ap = appender(&buffer);
>>      uint a = 0x11223344;
>>      ushort b = 0x6677;
>>      ap.append!uint(a);
>>      ap.append!ushort(b);
>>
>>      c cobj;
>>      cobj.c1 = 0xEEFF;
>>      cobj.c2 = 0xDEADBEAF;
>>      //cobj.c3 = [0x12, 0x34, 0x56, 0x78];
>>      ap.append(cobj);
>>
>>      ubyte[3] d = [0xAA, 0xBB, 0xCC];
>>      ap.append(d);
>>
>>      foreach(e; buffer) {
>>          writef("%02X ", e);
>>      }
>> }
>> ```
>> For compiling this code, I got error like this
>>
>> > onlineapp.d(22): Error: template std.bitmanip.append cannot
>> > deduce function from >argument types !()(RefAppender!(ubyte[]),
>> >
>> > c), candidates are:
>> >/dlang/dmd/linux/bin64/../../src/phobos/std/bitmanip.d(3623):
>> >    std.bitmanip.append(T, Endian endianness = Endian.bigEndian,
>> >
>> >R)(R range, T value) >if (canSwapEndianness!T &&
>> >isOutputRange!(R, ubyte))
>> >onlineapp.d(25): Error: template std.bitmanip.append cannot
>> >deduce function from >argument types !()(RefAppender!(ubyte[]),
>> >ubyte[3]), candidates are:
>> >
>> >/dlang/dmd/linux/bin64/../../src/phobos/std/bitmanip.d(3623):
>> >    std.bitmanip.append(T, Endian endianness = Endian.bigEndian,
>> >
>> >R)(R range, T value) >if (canSwapEndianness!T &&
>> >isOutputRange!(R, ubyte))
>>
>> It seems that the appending is just allow using the fundamental types like uint, ushort, it does not support struct, and can't support dynamic array too. As the hardware protocol is a dynamic-length style, so I also need to support append array or another buffer directly.
>>
>> It seems that I can't get the point how to using the bitmanip to do the packing I need, and also I have no idea what the unpacking will look like.
>
> write, append, peek, and read all operate on integral types only. If you have an array of int or whatnot that you want to put into an array of ubyte, then just use a loop, and if you have a struct, then write or append each of the members individually. Those functions are for making it clean and easy to write integral types to an array or range of ubyte (or to read them back out again) while properly taking endianness into account, not for directly serializing objects.
>
> I really don't know what to tell you if the examples in the docs aren't enough to figure out how to use the functions, because if I were trying to show you how, I'd give very similar examples, and I don't know why the docs wouldn't be clear as they are or how they could be made clearer for you.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis