This tutorial builds on the FIDL server tutorial. For the full set of FIDL tutorials, refer to the overview.
This tutorial implements a client for a FIDL protocol and runs it against the server created in the previous tutorial. The client in this tutorial is synchronous. There is an alternate tutorial for asynchronous clients.
If you want to write the code yourself, delete the following directories:
rm -r examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/*
Create a new component project at examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync
:
-
Add a
main()
function toexamples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/main.cc
:int main(int argc, const char** argv) { std::cout << "Hello, world!" << std::endl; }
-
Declare a target for the client in
examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/BUILD.gn
:{% includecode gerrit_repo="fuchsia/fuchsia" gerrit_path="examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/BUILD.gn" region_tag="imports" %} # Declare an executable for the client. executable("bin") { output_name = "fidl_echo_llcpp_client_sync" sources = [ "main.cc" ] } {% includecode gerrit_repo="fuchsia/fuchsia" gerrit_path="examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/BUILD.gn" region_tag="rest" %}
-
Add a component manifest in
examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/meta/client.cml
:Note: The binary name in the manifest must match the output name of the
executable
defined in the previous step.{% includecode gerrit_repo="fuchsia/fuchsia" gerrit_path="examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/meta/client.cml" region_tag="example_snippet" %}
-
Once you have created your component, ensure that you can add it to the build configuration:
fx set core.qemu-x64 --with //examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync:echo-client
-
Build the Fuchsia image:
fx build
-
Add the following dependencies:
{% includecode gerrit_repo="fuchsia/fuchsia" gerrit_path="examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/BUILD.gn" region_tag="deps" %}
-
Then, include them in
main.cc
:{% includecode gerrit_repo="fuchsia/fuchsia" gerrit_path="examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/main.cc" region_tag="includes" %}
These dependencies are explained in the server tutorial. The client requires far fewer dependencies because it does not need to run any asynchronous code.
The steps in this section explain how to add code to the main()
function
that connects the client to the server and makes requests to it.
The client then connects to the service directory /svc
, and uses it to connect
to the server.
{% includecode gerrit_repo="fuchsia/fuchsia" gerrit_path="examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/main.cc" region_tag="main" highlight="2,3,4,5,6,8,9,10" %}
The service::OpenServiceRoot
function initializes a channel, then passes the
server end to fdio_service_connect
to connect to the /svc
directory,
returning the client end wrapped in a zx::status
result type. We should check
for the is_ok()
value on the result to determine if any synchronous error
occurred.
Connecting to a protocol relative to the service directory is done by calling
fdio_service_connect_at
, passing it the service directory, the name of the
service to connect to, as well as the channel that should get passed to the
server. The service::ConnectAt
function wraps the low level fdio
call,
providing the user with a typed client channel endpoint to the requested
protocol.
In parallel, the component manager will route the requested service name and
channel to the server component, where the connect
function
implemented in the server tutorial is called with these arguments, binding the
channel to the server implementation.
An important point to note here is that this code assumes that /svc
already
contains an instance of the Echo
protocol. This is not the case by default
because of the sandboxing provided by the component framework. A workaround will
be when running the example at the end of the tutorial.
Note: This pattern of making a request to connect the server end of the channel to a service, then immediately using the client end to communicate with the service is known as request pipelining. This topic is covered further in a separate tutorial.
The code makes two requests to the server:
- An
EchoString
request - A
SendString
request
{% includecode gerrit_repo="fuchsia/fuchsia" gerrit_path="examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/main.cc" region_tag="main" highlight="12,13,16,17,18,19,20,24,25,26,27" %}
The protocol methods on the client object (EchoString
and SendString
) return
a result object, which will contain either an error or the contents
of the response (if any). When a response is expected, the client will block
until the response is received.
A client object is generated for each protocol, which is described further in the LLCPP bindings reference.
The client object allows handling events by specifying an
event delegate, where each method corresponds to one of the
events of the protocol, plus a Unknown
handler for when an unknown event
is received.
The code defines a handler, which prints the contents of an OnString
event,
then calls client.HandleOneEvent()
to block until an event is received. If a
recognized event was received and successfully decoded, HandleOneEvent
returns
fidl::Status::Ok()
. Otherwise, it returns an appropriate error:
{% includecode gerrit_repo="fuchsia/fuchsia" gerrit_path="examples/fidl/llcpp/client_sync/main.cc" region_tag="main" highlight="29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,41,42,43,44" %}
In order for the client and server to communicate using the Echo
protocol,
component framework must route the fuchsia.examples.Echo
capability from the
server to the client. For this tutorial, a realm component is
provided to declare the appropriate capabilities and routes.
Note: You can explore the full source for the realm component at
//examples/fidl/echo-realm
-
Configure your build to include the provided package that includes the echo realm, server, and client:
fx set core.qemu-x64 --with //examples/fidl/llcpp:echo-llcpp-client-sync
-
Build the Fuchsia image:
fx build
-
Run the
echo_realm
component. This creates the client and server component instances and routes the capabilities:ffx component run fuchsia-pkg://fuchsia.com/echo-llcpp-client-sync#meta/echo_realm.cm
-
Start the
echo_client
instance:ffx component start /core/ffx-laboratory:echo_realm/echo_client
The server component starts when the client attempts to connect to the Echo
protocol. You should see output similar to the following in the device logs
(ffx log
):
[echo_server][][I] Running echo server
[echo_server][][I] Incoming connection for fuchsia.examples.Echo
[echo_client][][I] Got response: hello
[echo_client][][I] Got event: hi
Terminate the realm component to stop execution and clean up the component instances:
ffx component destroy /core/ffx-laboratory:echo_realm