The transport OSID provides a means of moving data to or from the local endpoint.

Service Endpoints

The transport OSID defines an inbound and an outbound service. An outbound transport service is used from a local endpoint to a single remote endpoint. The remote endpoint may represent one or more physical endpoints, such as a multicast network, but presents itself as a single enpoint to the consumer. The inbound service is used to receive and process data from multiple remote endpoints and is implemented using a callback mechanism when a new request for association arrives.

An association or connection between two endpoints is represented by the session itself. The Transport OSID defines two flavors of transport. One is stream oriented that makes use of DataInputStream and DataOutputStream for reading and writing data. The other is message oriented that makes use of Request and Response for structuring data.

Stream-oriented Service

In the stream-oriented case, the transport OSID does not describe the format or sequence of the data which must be agreed upon at both ends. The OSID simply acts as a cover for specific transport or session related APIs, and provides a means for modular handling of service location for the purpose implementing a redundancy or load balancing scheme. The transport OSID may be used within another OSID to handle the transport of serialized data that can be transformed to a higher level OSID object.

The data streams defined in the transport OSID are also used in other OSIDs where a data stream is required such as the filing OSID or an Asset that contains arbitrary serialized data.

Message-oriented Service

The message oriented services provide additional structure that can be used to specify fields, organize streams, or provide data to object conversions. Requests may be sent synchronously so that each request waits for a Response, or asynchronously where each response is sent to a registered callback. A message Type describes both the structure of the Request and Response messages.

Outbound Example

                         
                         
                         OutboundStreamSession session = manager.getOutboundStreamSession();
                         
                         // simplified example of handling an authenticated service within the streams 
                         DataOutputStream auth = session.sendData();
                         DataInputStream credential = authentication.getCredential(credentialViaStreamType);
                         auth.writeStream(credential);
                         DataInputStream authResponse = session.receiveData();
                         
                         // sending an rpc-style command in the stream
                         DataOutputStream out = session.sendData();
                         String cmd = "<call><command>getSongs</command><params><param>" + album + "</param></call>";
                         out.write(cmd.length(), cmd);
                         out.close();
                         
                         while(session.hasDataAvailable()) {
                             DataInputStream in = session.receiveData();
                             addSongToPlayQueue(in);
                         }
                         
                                 
                         
                    

Inbound Example

                         
                         
                         public void dispatch(OutboundStreamSession session) {
                             Authentication auth = authenticateSession(session.receiveData());
                             if (authzSession.isAuthorized(auth.getAgentId, fId, qId)) {
                                 String argv = parseCommandFromStream(session.receiveData());
                                 if (argv[0].equals("getSongs")) {
                                     Song songs = getSongsFromAlbum(argv[1]);
                                     for (song: songs) {
                                         DataOutputStream out = session.sendData();
                                         out.write(song.data(), song.size());
                                     }
                                 }
                             }
                         }
                         
                                 
                         
                    

Message Example

                         
                         
                         OutboundMessageSession session = manager.getOutboundMessageSession();
                         
                         Request request = session.getRequest();
                         RequestHeader header = (HeaderRequestRecord) request.getRequestRecord(headerRequestRecordType);
                         header.setAuthentication(authentication);
                         // the message structure may also define interoperability cues 
                         // for the consumer
                         if (header.supportsLanguage()) {
                             header.setLanguage(languageType);
                         }
                         
                         Response response = session.makeRequest(request);
                         
                         if (response.ok()) {
                             request = session.getRequest();
                             ListSongsRequest cmd = (ListSongsRequestRecord) request.getRequestRecord(listSongsMessageType);
                             cmd.setAlbum(albumName);
                             response = session.makeRequest(request);
                             if (response.ok()) {
                                 ListSongsResponse songs = (ListSongsResponseRecord) response.getResponseRecord(listSongsResponseRecordType);
                         
                                 // the transport provider can return data in the message, or be used
                                 // to return usable objects as specified by its type
                                 for (Song song : songs.getSongs()) {
                                     Audio.play(song);
                                 }
                             } else error(response.getStatusMessage());
                         } else error (response.getStatusMessage());