Hello Everyone,

I have a requirement to create a binary blob of a structure in my program. Let me describe the problem;

Process(P1) <-------> Process(P2)
{Connect_REQ}
{Connect_Resp}
.....
.....
.....
I need to send a structure struct XX {.name="abc",.value=1, //etc} in the form of binary blob format to process-P2, in connect request.

Can any one of you shed your knowledge on binary blob format and how can we encode a structure into that format.

Any help/pointers is highly appreciated!!

It's not going to work if you have strings because the structure will contain a pointer. You'll therefore probably need to serialize and deserialize the data structure, which can be a nightmare unless you take advantage of an existing IPC protocol. JSON might be a good place to start.

Kevin Barry

I second ta0kira's point about structures (assuming this is C language structs) and pointers. String data is by nature a variable length data type, so your data must contain either a length descriptor for string fields, or use unique delimiter tokens to mark beginnings &/or endings of fields. JSON is probably as good as any serialization mechanism, but there are others. Certainly this is a problem that has been solved numerous times, so I do suggest availing yourself of an existing solution rather than crafting yet another one of your own contrivance.

--- rod.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!!
Anyways my struct doesn't include any strings now and I'm using sockets to communicate between these processes and simply passing the struct in a buffer and then forming a binary blob by writing it to a file at process P2.