[Opinion] Do you like how these Packet Structures work?

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Originally Posted by Korvacs @Bone, actually in my original post i said that it works well for everything except to packets which dont work because of the need for variable sized arrays, and you came back with of course it can be done with dynamic values, so im not being hostile, im just being correct, you cannot do it thats the end of it. You can work around it using constructs which of course can be done, sadly its alot less elegant and requires more processing and cpu time. But that is a work around to something that they should have more sense about when designing the language. :(

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Originally Posted by ImmuneOne This method works very well for every auth/game packet I use.

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Originally Posted by Korvacs Give your chat packet a try and output the Message with a small string and see what happens. @Bone, you cannot create a struct with dynamic values in it without the use of a construct, it, cannot, be, done, in, C#. You seem to be under the impression that the more you continue to throw explanations for various aspects of programing at me, that eventually it will stop being impossible...?

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Originally Posted by Korvacs You seem to be under the impression that the more you continue to throw explanations for various aspects of programing at me, that eventually it will stop being impossible...?

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Originally Posted by Korvacs Again, that doesnt work for dynamic length strings, i explored that but what your doing there is assigning the string a fixed length in memory, so if the string is say 4 bytes long, then when you assign the data from the pointer to the struct you read a further 12 bytes into invalid memory, because the packet you assigned only have 4 bytes of data at that location.

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Originally Posted by _tao4229_ When and where do you read into "invalid memory"? If you assign it a fixed 16 bytes in the struct, those 16 bytes will always be valid, they just wont have any (useful) data beyond the 4 (5 actually) bytes of string data.

MessagePacket* Packet = (MessagePacket*)Pointer;

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Originally Posted by ImmuneOne Again, I have tested this method numerous times.. and I just tried it again. It just works fine, and by the way you weren't talking about receiving a chat packet. It was about serializing one in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Korvacs Receive a chat packet, and using a pointer assign it to that chat packet structure like so: Code: MessagePacket* Packet = (MessagePacket*)Pointer; If the received chat packet has a message which is less than 16 bytes long, and the over all chat packet is shorter than defined then you will read past the end of the packet and into random memory, you might think that you wont have anything useful beyond it, but that doesnt mean you will receive a nice neat trimmed string you will just continue to read into the memory beyond what was assigned. Ive tested it at lengths and honestly it doesnt work. Also if you receive a message which is longer than 16 bytes you will only receive the first 16 bytes because thats all you assigned.

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Originally Posted by _tao4229_ That line of code doesn't read any memory at all. It just assigns one uint into another uint. Unless you're trying to read the 16 fixed bytes then I guess that's bad, but you shouldn't be. You should only read as far as the length you get. I don't disagree, just saying. As for the second statement, if you're using the MessagePacket* you can actually keep reading on past where the structure ends. Fixed strings such as fixed sbyte[16] are just pointers to the location thats fixed. I don't do my packets like that (except the auth packet, where the username/password are actually fixed length) where they require dynamic strings. Dynamic length strings inside a struct without outside help (assigning to a buffer, etc) aren't possible in C# or C++. You have to go the long way around because they're dynamic, the definition of dynamic prevents it from being in a fixed location such as a struct.

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Originally Posted by bone-you Careful. You're disagreeing with Korvacs. Infraction imminent. Funny how that was all my explanations were about, how it was impossible without a construct function. Is Korvacs going to say you're wrong too? Or will he agree with you because you're not me?

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Originally Posted by _tao4229_ I've been banned 3 times already for disagreeing with the admins (not mods, Lowfyr and his crew). I could care less if I get banned again/IP banned.

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Originally Posted by Korvacs If you don't know what your talking about, then stop talking.

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Originally Posted by ImmuneOne Again, I have tested this method numerous times.. and I just tried it again. It just works fine, and by the way you weren't talking about receiving a chat packet. It was about serializing one in the first place.

MessagePacket* Packet = (MessagePacket*)Pointer;

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Ansi)]
    public unsafe struct MessagePacket
    {
        public ushort Lenght;
        public ushort Type;//0-4
        public uint Msg_Color;//4-8
        public uint Msg_Type;//8-12
        public uint Msg_ID;//12-16
        public ulong Unknown;//16-24
        public byte String_Count;//24-25
        public byte String_From_Length;//25-26
        public fixed sbyte String_From[16];//26-27 + pos
        public byte String_To_Length;//27 + pos - 28 + pos
        public fixed sbyte String_To[16];//28 + pos - 29 + pos
        public byte Blank;//29 + pos - 30 + pos
        public byte String_Message_Length;//30 + pos - 31 + pos        
        public fixed sbyte String_Message[16];//31 + pos - 32 + pos
    }

                        MessagePacket* Packet = (MessagePacket*)Pointer;

                        Console.WriteLine("[ChatPacket] From {0} To {1} : {2}", new string(Packet->String_From), new string(Packet->String_To), new string(Packet->String_Message));