ModernNet

ModernNet is a barebones library to interact with the Minecraft Java Edition protocol!

To support IO, I've taken the Sans-I/O approach, separating the protocol from the IO, it can easily be implemented in any library with this code:

# Set up the buffer
var buffer = newBuffer()

buffer.writeVarNum[:int32](0x27)
buffer.writeVarNum[:int32](8)
buffer.writeNum[:int64](23142)

buffer.pos = 0

# Commence tests~
var b: seq[byte] # Pretend this is a buffered socket

var res = readRawPacket(b)

while not res.isOk:
  b.add buffer.readNum[:byte]()
  res = readRawPacket(b)

assert res.ok.packet.id == 0x27
assert res.ok.packet.buf.readVarNum[:int32]() == 8
assert res.ok.packet.buf.readNum[:int64]() == 23142
assert res.ok.bytesRead == 10 # The ID, length and the data in the buffer

Useful Notes

An empty packet with size 0 needs to be handled by the user currently, if packetLength <= 0: return is enough to usually detect if a socket has closed.

To-Dos

• Work on better documentation, with more examples.

• Implement MC auth for the library.

  • This isn't a must, but it would improve the QoL of developers who use this library.

• Wrap all packets and relating data for each MC version (and sharing the types/code when possible).

  • Not a requirement but would be nice: Create an API to parse a packet from a socket/buffer without any other manual code.
  • https://github.com/PrismarineJS/minecraft-data would likely be a very good starting point for automating generation of the packet wrappers.

• Add more tests for verifying everything is working correctly.

  • A W.I.P server is being made with this library so that more tests can be added.

Completed Goals

• Rewrite code to avoid streams (unnecessary overhead).
  • Look at src/modernnet/buffer.nim for this functionality.

Unplanned/Scrapped

• Allow for the full API of encoding and decoding to be used even on sockets.
  • I've decided that doing everything via Buffers is much better as it allows for us to handle errors more gracefully.