nim-libp2p-experimental/examples/tutorial_2_customproto.md
Eric Mastro fffa7e8cc2
fix: remove returned Futures from switch.start (#662)
* fix: remove returned Futures from switch.start

The proc `start` returned a seq of futures that was mean to be awaited by the caller. However, the start proc itself awaited each Future before returning it, so the ceremony requiring the caller to await the Future, and returning the Futures themselves was just used to handle errors. But we'll give a better way to handle errors in a future revision

Remove `switch.start` return type (implicit `Future[void]`)

Update tutorials and examples to reflect the change.

* Raise error during failed transport

Replaces logging of error, and adds comment that it should be replaced with a callback in a future PR.
2021-12-03 19:23:12 +01:00

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2.8 KiB
Markdown

In the [previous tutorial](tutorial_1_connect.md), we've looked at how to create a simple ping program using the `nim-libp2p`.
We'll now look at how to create a custom protocol inside the libp2p
# Custom protocol in libp2p
Let's create a `part2.nim`, and import our dependencies:
```nim
import bearssl
import chronos
import stew/byteutils
import libp2p
```
This is similar to the first tutorial, except we don't need to import the `Ping` protocol.
Next, we'll declare our custom protocol
```nim
const TestCodec = "/test/proto/1.0.0"
type TestProto = ref object of LPProtocol
```
We've set a [protocol ID](https://docs.libp2p.io/concepts/protocols/#protocol-ids), and created a custom `LPProtocol`. In a more complex protocol, we could use this structure to store interesting variables.
A protocol generally has two part: and handling/server part, and a dialing/client part.
Theses two parts can be identical, but in our trivial protocol, the server will wait for a message from the client, and the client will send a message, so we have to handle the two cases separately.
Let's start with the server part:
```nim
proc new(T: typedesc[TestProto]): T =
# every incoming connections will in be handled in this closure
proc handle(conn: Connection, proto: string) {.async, gcsafe.} =
echo "Got from remote - ", string.fromBytes(await conn.readLp(1024))
# We must close the connections ourselves when we're done with it
await conn.close()
return T(codecs: @[TestCodec], handler: handle)
```
This is a constructor for our `TestProto`, that will specify our `codecs` and a `handler`, which will be called for each incoming peer asking for this protocol.
In our handle, we simply read a message from the connection and `echo` it.
We can now create our client part:
```nim
proc hello(p: TestProto, conn: Connection) {.async.} =
await conn.writeLp("Hello p2p!")
```
Again, pretty straight-forward, we just send a message on the connection.
We can now create our main procedure:
```nim
proc main() {.async, gcsafe.} =
let
rng = newRng()
testProto = TestProto.new()
switch1 = newStandardSwitch(rng=rng)
switch2 = newStandardSwitch(rng=rng)
switch1.mount(testProto)
await switch1.start()
await switch2.start()
let conn = await switch2.dial(switch1.peerInfo.peerId, switch1.peerInfo.addrs, TestCodec)
await testProto.hello(conn)
# We must close the connection ourselves when we're done with it
await conn.close()
await allFutures(switch1.stop(), switch2.stop()) # close connections and shutdown all transports
```
This is very similar to the first tutorial's `main`, the only noteworthy difference is that we use `newStandardSwitch`, which is similar to `createSwitch` but is bundled directly in libp2p
We can now wrap our program by calling our main proc:
```nim
waitFor(main())
```
And that's it!