TcpFrame C# Library

TcpFrame is a C# library that provides event-driven TCP framing capabilities. It simplifies the process of handling framed data over TCP connections, allowing you to focus on processing the received frames.

Installation

Search for the nuget TcpFrame and add it to your project.

Alternatively, via the CLI dotnet add package TcpFrame

Usage

You can send either a string or a byte[].

Check the examples folder for a basic working demo of a chat app demonstrating sending strings.

Getting Started

You can pass in an optional ILogger when instantiating TcpFrame.

Server (Simple)

var tcpFrame = new TcpFrameServer();
await tcpFrame.StartAsync();

Client (Simple)

var tcpFrame = new TcpFrameClient();
await tcpFrame.ConnectAsync();

Server (Advanced)

var tcpFrame = new TcpFrameClient()
{
    Port = 9000,
    Config = new Configuration
    {
        EventLoopGroup = new MultithreadEventLoopGroup(),
        Shared = new Configuration.General
        {
            ByteOrder = ByteOrder.BigEndian,
            LengthFieldLength = 4,
            LengthAdjustment = 0
        },
        Encoder = new Configuration.Encoding
        {
            LengthFieldIncludesLengthFieldLength = false
        },
        Decoder = new Configuration.Decoding
        {
            MaxFrameLength = 8 * 1_024 * 1_024,
            LengthFieldOffset = 0,
            InitialBytesToStrip = 4,
            FailFast = false
        },
        // Certificate = X509Certificate2
    }
};

await tcpFrame.StartAsync();

Client (Advanced)

var tcpFrame = new TcpFrameClient()
{
    Host = "127.0.0.1",
    Port = 9000,
    AutoReconnect = true,
    ReconnectDelay = 1000,
    ReconnectInitialDelay = 0,
    Config = new Configuration
    {
        EventLoopGroup = new MultithreadEventLoopGroup(),
        Shared = new Configuration.General
        {
            ByteOrder = ByteOrder.BigEndian,
            LengthFieldLength = 4,
            LengthAdjustment = 0
        },
        Encoder = new Configuration.Encoding
        {
            LengthFieldIncludesLengthFieldLength = false
        },
        Decoder = new Configuration.Decoding
        {
            MaxFrameLength = 8 * 1_024 * 1_024,
            LengthFieldOffset = 0,
            InitialBytesToStrip = 4,
            FailFast = false
        },
        // Certificate = X509Certificate2
    }
};

await tcpFrame.ConnectAsync();

Modular Serialization

These examples are for the client side, but the same principle applies to the server for unicast, multicast and broadcast.

JSON

byte[] JsonSerializer<T>(T data)
{
    var json = System.Text.Json.JsonSerializer.Serialize(data);
    return Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(json);
}

var objectToBeSerialized = new { };
var tcpFrame = new TcpFrameClient();
await tcpFrame.ConnectAsync();
await tcpFrame.SendAsync(objectToBeSerialized, JsonSerializer);

MessagePack

byte[] MessagePackSerializer<T>(T data) => MessagePack.MessagePackSerializer.Serialize(data);

var objectToBeSerialized = new { };
var tcpFrame = new TcpFrameClient();
await tcpFrame.ConnectAsync();
await tcpFrame.SendAsync(objectToBeSerialized, MessagePackSerializer);

Rust - Tokio Framing Interop

I wrote this wrapper for DotNetty so I could communicate with my rust service that utilizes framing. The defaults of TcpFrame suits tokio framing with the defaults.

Code fragment for Rust

use tokio::net::TcpStream;
use tokio_util::codec::{Framed, LengthDelimitedCodec};

// stream and tokio spawn code for handling clients was redacted for brevity

fn create_framed_socket(stream: TcpStream) -> Framed<TcpStream, LengthDelimitedCodec> {
    // Default settings
    let codec = LengthDelimitedCodec::new();
    
    // Default settings (Expanded)
    let codec = LengthDelimitedCodec::builder()
        .max_frame_length(8 * 1_024 * 1_024)
        .length_field_offset(0)
        .length_field_length(4)
        .length_adjustment(0)
        .big_endian()
        .new_codec();
    
    // Create the framed stream
    Framed::new(stream, codec)
}

You can use this with MessagePack serialization, which allows you to interop between MessagePack (CSharp) and MessagePack (Rust). As a side note, rust handles its enums as arrays compared to dotnet which handles it as an integer type, so you will need to deal with that in your code, either at the dotnet side or the rust side. I opted to handle it at the rust side.

Contributing

Contributions to TcpFrame are welcome! If you find any issues or have ideas for improvements, please open an issue or submit a pull request on the Github repository: https://github.com/mbwilding/TcpFrame.

When contributing, please follow the existing code style and conventions. Additionally, make sure to thoroughly test your changes, add unit tests and provide appropriate documentation.

License

TcpFrame is distributed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more information.