Protocols

Protocols are the primary entity of the DML serialization system. Each protocol is uniquely identified by an ID and groups together several messages together.

One protocol may be described per XML file and the name of the protocol (which is equal to the specification file name in most cases) may be defined as the root XML tag:

<MyAwesomeProtocol>
  <!-- Protocol description here -->
</MyAwesomeProtocol>

Protocol information

Every protocol must have a child XML element named _ProtocolInfo assigned to it. Its record holds the following mandatory message fields:

Name	Type	Description
ServiceID	UBYT	A unique service ID for the protocol service provider
ProtocolType	STR	A unique name for the type of protocol being defined
ProtocolVersion	INT	The version of the DML system that is used by the protocol
ProtocolDescription	STR	A description of the purpose the protocol serves

When serializing protocol messages over the network, the ServiceID identifies the higher-order protocol of the message to read. As such, implementors will have to track all accessible ServiceIDs accordingly for lookup.

For more information on types, records and fields, see the documentation for messages.

Example

<MyAwesomeProtocol>
  <_ProtocolInfo>
    <RECORD>
      <ServiceID TYPE="UBYT">123</ServiceID>
      <ProtocolType TYPE="STR">AWESOME</ProtocolType>
      <ProtocolVersion TYPE="INT">1</ProtocolVersion>
      <ProtocolDescription TYPE="STR">Super awesome protocol</ProtocolDescription>
    </RECORD>
  </_ProtocolInfo>
</MyAwesomeProtocol>