Is there a way to specify a packet-based
protocol in XML, so (de)serialization can happen automatically?
The context is as follows. I have a device that communicates through a serial port. It sends and receives a byte stream consisting of 'packets'. A packet is a collection of elementary data types and (sometimes) other packets. Some elements of packets are conditional; their inclusion depends on earlier elements.
I have a C# application that communicates with this device. Naturally, I don't want to work on a byte-level throughout my application; I want to separate the
protocol from my application code. Therefore I need to translate the byte stream to structures (classes).
Currently I have implemented the
protocol in C# by defining a class for each packet. These classes define the order and type of elements for each packet. Making class members conditional is difficult, so
protocol information ends up in functions.
I imagine XML that looks like this (note that my experience designing XML is limited):
<packet>
<field name="Author" type="int32" />
<field name="Nickname" type="bytes" size="4">
<condition type="range">
<field>Author</field>
<min>3</min>
<max>6</min>
</condition>
</field>
</packet>
.NET has something called a 'binary serializer', but I don't think that's what I'm looking for.
Is there a way to separate
protocol and code, even if packets 'include' other packets and have conditional elements?
