Package ist.palcom.mal

Contains classes implementing the Media Abstraction Layer in the PalCom communication stack.

See:
          Description

Interface Summary
MediaManager Interface for implementing a media manager.
 

Class Summary
AbstractMediaManager AbstractMediaManager is the central class which hides details about different media and protocols (such as UDP or IR).
CommunicationThread A CommunicationThread is responsible for sending and receiving messages over one medium or protocol (such as UDP or IR).
CompoundMediaManager This class implements a media manager that can have other media managers as submanagers, handling the actual communication.
CreateConnectionEvent  
DeviceCacheObject  
HeartAttackEvent Information about a device having a heart attack is passed to receivers (ResourceManager) in HeartAttackEvents.
HeartBeatEvent HeartBeats are passed to receivers (ResourceManager) in HeartBeatEvents.
MALErrorEvent This event is raised whenever an unrecoverable error has occured within the Media Abstraction Layer.
MediaManagerSkeleton  
Message Message implement the common message format.
MessageArrayWithURLEvent A MessageArrayWithURLEvent contains a message and the associated sender and receiver URL.
MessageEvent Messages are passed to message receivers in MessageEvents.
MessageHeaderNode  
MessageWithURLEvent A MessageWithURLEvent contains a message and an associated URL.
MultiPartMessage  
SimpleMessage  
StopEvent A StopEvent is sent to a PalcomThread for stopping it (the thread must implement this behavior for this to happen).
 

Package ist.palcom.mal Description

Contains classes implementing the Media Abstraction Layer in the PalCom communication stack.

Package Specification

At the lowest level of the communication architecture, the Media Abstraction Layer (MAL) has the purpose to bridge between the PalCom communication model and the actual network used. This layer thus effectively hides all the implementation details of the used network from the rest of PalCom. This is essential in order to make it easy to add support for new network technologies in the future, and also to make it transparent to dynamically switch between available network technologies. Currently there are three implementations of this layer, for IP, Bluetooth and IR communication technologies, respectively.


Packages shown according to their position in the communication stack.

The central class in the package is AbstractMediaManager. AbstractMediaManager implements the interface MediaManager, which is used by upper layers. For handling the network technology specifics, there are concrete AbstractMediaManager subclasses in ist.palcom.mal.udp, ist.palcom.mal.bt, etc.

For handling actual commication over sockets or similar, concrete MediaManagers create proper subclasses of CommunicationThread.