NetworkSocket

This module will probably need a multithreading implementation. ​Here is a good howto about multithreaded SDL and mutexes. A even better guide for C++ itself: ​here.

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This is a small description of the NetworkSocket class

/* public: */

/*
 * The standard constructor: does nothing, thumb
 */
 NetworkSocket();


/*
 * The constructor that creates the new socket
 * 
 * @param address: the address informations (SDL_net.h definition)
 * @param type: the type of the Socket: Server/Client
 */
 NetworkSocket(IPaddress address, NodeType type);


 /*
  * This function establishes a TCP/UDP connection to a given server (function argument).
  * It is called by the NetworkStream. It creates a TCP/UDP socket for the connection.
  */
 void connectToServer(IPaddress ip);


 /*
  * Tells the NetworkSocket to listen on a specific port for incoming connections.
  * NetworkSocket::writeBytes(...) will have no effect until there is a valuable connection.
  */
 void listen(unsigned int port);


 /*
  * Tears down a TCP/UDP connection. 
  */
 void disconnect();


 /*
  * reconnects, restablishes the connection
  */
 void reconnect();


 /*
  * This function writes some bytes (data) to the network connection (if the connection is already
  * estabilhed) otherwise it just does nothing (silently discarding the data). And writes some 
  * warnings
  */
 int writeBytes(byte* data, int length);


 /*
  * Reads in the bytes from the network interface and passes it to the NetworkStream.
  * This function must internaly be implemented/connected as a thread, since the read
  * functions of many network libraries are blocking an would therefore block the whole
  * program.
  * From outside, the thread shouldn't be accessible at all.
  * @param data: pointer to the NetworkStream data buffer
  * @param length: length of the data to read
  * returns: length of data read 
  */
 int readBytes(byte* data, int length);


 /*
  * Reads in the bytes from the network interface and passes it to the NetworkStream.
  * This function must internaly be implemented/connected as a thread, since the read
  * functions of many network libraries are blocking an would therefore block the whole
  * program.
  * From outside, the thread shouldn't be accessible at all.
  * @param data: pointer to the NetworkStream data buffer
  * @param length: length of the data to read
  * returns: 0 if the length of data was not available, else returns length as the number of bytes read
  */
 int readBlock(byte* data, int length);