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<html>
<head>
<title>Smack: Packet Properties - Jive Software</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" /
</head>
<body>
<div class="header">
Packet Properties
</div>
<div class="nav">
&laquo; <a href="index.html">Table of Contents</a>
</div>
<p>
Smack provides an easy mechanism for attaching arbitrary properties to packets. Each property
has a String name, and a value that is a Java primitive (int, long, float, double, boolean) or
any Serializable object (a Java object is Serializable when it implements the Serializable
interface).
</p>
<p class="subheader">
Using the API
</p>
<p>
All major objects have property support, such as Message objects. The following code
demonstrates how to set properties:
</p>
<div class="code"><pre>
Message message = chat.createMessage();
<font color="gray"></i>// Add a Color object as a property.</i></font>
message.setProperty(<font color="blue">"favoriteColor"</font>, new Color(0, 0, 255));
<font color="gray"></i>// Add an int as a property.</i></font>
message.setProperty(<font color="blue">"favoriteNumber"</font>, 4);
chat.sendMessage(message);
</pre></div>
<p>
Getting those same properties would use the following code:
</p>
<div class="code"><pre>
Message message = chat.nextMessage();
<font color="gray"></i>// Get a Color object property.</i></font>
Color favoriteColor = (Color)message.getProperty(<font color="blue">"favoriteColor"</font>);
<font color="gray"></i>// Get an int property. Note that properties are always returned as
// Objects, so we must cast the value to an Integer, then convert
// it to an int.</i></font>
int favoriteNumber = ((Integer)message.getProperty(<font color="blue">"favoriteNumber"</font>)).intValue();
</pre></div>
<p class="subheader">
Objects as Properties
</p>
<p>
Using objects as property values is a very powerful and easy way to exchange data. However,
you should keep the following in mind:
</p>
<ul>
<li>When you send a Java object, only clients running Java will be able to interpret the data.
So, consider using a series of primitive values to transfer data instead.
<li>Objects sent as property values must implement Serialiable. Additionally, both the sender
and receiver must have identical versions of the class, or a serialization exception
will occur when de-serialiazing the object.
<li>Serialized objects can potentially be quite large, which will use more bandwidth and
server resources.
</ul>
<p class="subheader">
XML Format
</p>
<p>
The current XML format used to send property data is not a standard, so will likely not be
recognized by clients not using Smack. The XML looks like the following (comments added for
clarity):
</p>
<div class="code"><pre>
<font color="gray"><i>&lt;!-- All properties are in a x block. --&gt;</i></font>
&lt;properties xmlns="http://www.jivesoftware.com/xmlns/xmpp/properties"&gt;
<font color="gray"><i>&lt;!-- First, a property named "prop1" that's an integer. --&gt;</i></font>
&lt;property&gt;
&lt;name&gt;prop1&lt;/name&gt;
&lt;value type="integer"&gt;123&lt;/value&gt;
&lt;property&gt;
<font color="gray"><i>&lt;!-- Next, a Java object that's been serialized and then converted
from binary data to base-64 encoded text. --&gt;</i></font>
&lt;property&gt;
&lt;name&gt;blah2&lt;/name&gt;
&lt;value type="java-object"&gt;adf612fna9nab&lt;/value&gt;
&lt;property&gt;
&lt;/properties&gt;
</pre></div>
<p>
The currently supported types are: <tt>integer</tt>, <tt>long</tt>, <tt>float</tt>,
<tt>double</tt>, <tt>boolean</tt>, <tt>string</tt>, and <tt>java-object</tt>.
</p>
<div class="footer">
Copyright &copy; Jive Software 2002-2003
</div>
</body>
</html>