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CommsChampion Tools

This project contains a set of tool applications , which can be used to develop, monitor and debug custom binary communication protocols, that were developed using the COMMS Library. All the applications are plug-in based, i.e. plug-ins are used to define I/O socket, data filters, and the custom protocol itself. The tools use Qt framework for GUI interfaces as well as loading and managing plug-ins.

The current list of available applications is below. Please refer to the wiki page for tutorial on how to use them.

• cc_view is the main generic GUI application for visualisation and analysis of the communication protocols.

• cc_dump is a command line utility, that recognises all the received custom binary protocol messages and dumps them all in CSV format to standard output. It can also record the incoming message into the file, which can be opened later for visual analysis using cc_view GUI application. The tool has an ability to receive a file with definition of outgoing messages, created using cc_view GUI application, and send them one by one in parallel to dumping/recording the incoming messages.

The CommsChampion Tools contain the following plugins that can be used with any application:

• CC Echo Socket - Echo socket, all the data being sent is immediately reported as an incoming data.
• CC NULL Socket - NULL socket, that doesn't produce any incoming data and discards any outgoing data.
• CC Serial Socket - Low level socket that sends and receives data over serial (RS-232) I/O link.
• CC SSL Client Socket - Client secure (SSL/TLS) connection socket.
• CC TCP/IP Client Socket - Client TCP/IP socket, that connects to remote server, sends and receives data over TCP/IP network link.
• CC TCP/IP Proxy Socket - Proxy server TCP/IP socket, combines Server and Client side of TCP/IP connection, can be used to monitor traffic of the messages between remote a client and a server.
• CC TCP/IP Server Socket - Server TCP/IP socket, waits for and accepts all connections from TCP/IP clients, sends and receives data to/from them.
• CC UDP/IP Socket - Generic (client/server) UDP/IP socket.
• CC UDP/IP Proxy Socket - Proxy server UDP/IP socket, combines Server and Client side of UDP/IP connection, can be used to monitor traffic of the messages between remote a client and a server.
• CC Raw Data Protocol - Protocol definition that defines only a single message type with one field of unlimited length data. It can be used to review the raw data being received from I/O socket.

How to Build

In addition to the Qt framework, this project depends on the COMMS Library as well and tries to find it through invocation of the find_package() cmake function. There is a need to provide its location using CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH variable.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/install/dir -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/path/to/comms/install
cmake --build . --target install

For Windows platfrom there may be a need to also add a Qt installation path to the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH as well as build extra deploy_qt target to deploy the Qt libraries into the installation directory.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/to/install/dir -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ^
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/path/to/comms/install;/path/to/qt/install
cmake --build . --target install
cmake --build . --target deploy_qt    

The build should support both Qt5 (default) and Qt6. It is possible to force usage of specific Qt major version by using CC_TOOLS_QT_MAJOR_QT_VERSION cmake variable.

cmake -DCC_TOOLS_QT_MAJOR_QT_VERSION=6 ...

It is highly recommended to open main CMakeLists.txt file and review the available configuration options and variables.

Since v5.0 this project uses and requires minimum C++17 support from the compiler.

Developing Custom Socket/Filter/Protocol Plugin

The full tutorial as well as API documentation can be downloaded as doc_cc_tools_qt_vX.zip archive from from release artefacts or the latest version can be browsed online.

Branching Model

This repository will follow the Successful Git Branching Model.

The master branch will always point to the latest release, the development is performed on develop branch. As the result it is safe to just clone the sources of this repository and use it without any extra manipulations of looking for the latest stable version among the tags and checking it out.

Contact Information

For bug reports, feature requests, or any other question you may open an issue here in github or e-mail me directly to: arobenko@gmail.com. I usually respond within 24 hours.