Architecture

The flake-android-sdk divides into multiple layer of detail and tasks. In the following, each layer will be shortly introduced.

• FlakeClient
  The FlakeClient represents the top layer and provide only the necessary functions for the user to interact with flake

• Connection
  The Connection is one layer beneath the FlakeClient and acts as a controller of the protocol. It manages the incoming messages, errors, etc. It gets its information from the transport layer.

• Transport
  The Transport layer buffers all incoming Bytes and converts them into readable messages, which then gets forwarded to the Connection Layer.

• Wire
  The Wire Layer is the lowest layer and handles the connection with the flake router. It reads / writes data as bytes directly to the stream and also open / closes connections.

Some of the layers interact with other helper objects:

• FlakeObject
  The FlakeObject gets created with receiving the reply of a queryObjects message and represents a service / object of the flake router. It is the second major element of the SDK, with that the user is interacting. Further detail later.

• Message
  The message object represents a flake message described in the original flake protocol documentation and contains all the information as MessageType, toke, source-/ and destination address etc. It gets parsed from and to Bytes by the transportation layer.

• MessageHandler
  The message handlers are handling the incoming messages and decides what to do with them. The ping message handler for example automatically returns a ping response when one gets received. The most used message handler is the reply message handler. When the SDK / User sends a message, a callback gets registered in the reply message handler for this message (identified by the token). If a message with the same token gets received (alias the messages reply) the callback gets called.

The following image shows a rough overview of the structure: