BridgeNet2, v1.0.0 | A blazing fast networking library for Roblox

Vladimir5565 · July 12, 2023, 5:06pm

Right now, I tested it, and at first it seemed to me that everything worked well, but in the end it turned out that now the scripts have changed places.
The one that worked - stopped working, and the other - vice versa.
I’ll send you the place file in a minute

C_Corpze · July 12, 2023, 6:11pm

Wow that’s pretty cool!

Say, how does it actually decrease bandwidth?
I’ve always wondered how that works with remote events.

How do you simply “reduce” what is send through a remote event?
I’ve been looking into things like how I can compress or reduce the size of numbers and Vector3 values but with little to no success.

Mind explaining how all of this works?

ffrostfall · July 12, 2023, 6:45pm

github.com

ffrostflame/roblox-writeups/blob/main/writeups/data-saving-format.md

Assuming the following is true:
```
Blank remote call: ~9 bytes

string: length + 2 bytes

boolean: 2 bytes
number: 9 bytes (IEEE-754 signed doubles)

table: 2 bytes -- (There is no overhead for table indexes)

EnumItem: 4 bytes

Instance: 4 bytes

Vector3: 13 bytes

CFrame (axis-aligned): 14 bytes
CFrame (random rotation, non-axis aligned): 20 bytes
```

This file has been truncated. show original

C_Corpze · July 12, 2023, 7:24pm

I’m actually surprised at the fact that a vector3 is smaller than sending over 3 numbers.
a cframe is also pretty small compared to a single number which surprises me by a lot.

How are cframes only 1 byte more than a vector3 despite having way more properties?

Why are booleans 2 bytes when it’s literally just a value that’s only 1 bit?

2jammers · July 12, 2023, 7:25pm

This is because roblox uses newproxy() internally, which is a lot smaller than regular tables.

C_Corpze · July 12, 2023, 7:27pm

I’d love to know more about this.
I’ve been looking into compressing or making data smaller when sending through remote events without relying on 3rd party libraries because I already wanted to write my own library and it cannot use code from other libraries so I’m looking into writing things from scratch and keeping it simple.

2jammers · July 12, 2023, 7:30pm

Slightly more lightweight than a table, and supports some meta-methods not supported on tables before it was removed again.

Source: Deduplicator

Note that the only unsupported metamethod was __len, though it is now supported on all tables as of this RFC: RFC: Support `__len` metamethod for tables and `rawlen` function by zeux · Pull Request #536 · Roblox/luau · GitHub

newproxy was deprecated in Lua 5.1 (what Luau uses), and removed in Lua 5.2.

ffrostfall · July 16, 2023, 2:41am

version 0.5.2: 7/15/2023

Improvements

PlayerContainers now error if an incorrect amount of arguments is passed

Fixes

Fixed a bug where referencing a bridge multiple times clearing connections each time
Fixed a bug where the player loading before BridgeNet2 starts would never initialize the player

Quadzral · July 20, 2023, 3:52pm

I was also looking for that, but couldn’t find it for v2 so I quickly cobbled together the d.ts from the existing luau types, haven’t checked it for errors tho

/// <reference types="@rbxts/types" />

type MetaMessage = "1";

type ServerConnectionCallback = (player: Player, content: Content) => void;
type Content = unknown;
type Identifier = string;

// Player containers
type PlayerContainerTypes = "all" | "set" | "except" | "single";
interface PlayerContainer {
	kind: PlayerContainerTypes;
}
interface SetPlayerContainer extends PlayerContainer {
	kind: "set";
	value: Array<Player>;
}
interface ExceptPlayerContainer extends PlayerContainer {
	kind: "except";
	value: { [index: number]: Player };
}
interface SinglePlayerContainer extends PlayerContainer {
	kind: "single";
	value: Player;
}
interface AllPlayerContainer extends PlayerContainer {
	kind: "all";
}

type PlayerContainerIndexes = {
	All: () => AllPlayerContainer;
	Except: (excludedPlayers: Array<Player>) => ExceptPlayerContainer;
	Single: (player: Player) => SinglePlayerContainer;
	Players: (players: Array<Player>) => SetPlayerContainer;
};

type ServerInboundPacket = {};
type ServerOutboundPacket = {
	playerContainer: PlayerContainer;
	content: unknown;
	id: Identifier;
};

export interface Bridge {
	Logging: boolean;
}
export interface ServerBridge {
	Fire(this: ServerBridge, target: Player | (AllPlayerContainer | SetPlayerContainer), content: Content): void;
	Connect(this: ServerBridge, callback: (player: Player, content?: Content) => void): Connection;
	Once(this: ServerBridge, callback: (player: Player, content?: Content) => void): void;
	Wait(this: ServerBridge, callback: (player: Player, content?: Content) => void): LuaTuple<[Player, Content?]>;

	OnServerInvoke?: (player: Player, content: Content) => LuaTuple<[Content]>;
	RateLimitActive: boolean;
}
export interface ClientBridge extends Bridge {
	Fire(this: ClientBridge, content?: Content): void;
	Connect(this: ClientBridge, callback: (content?: Content) => void): Connection;
	Once(this: ClientBridge, callback: (content?: Content) => void): void;
	Wait(this: ClientBridge, callback: (content?: Content) => void): Content | undefined;

	InvokeServerAsync: (this: ClientBridge, content?: Content) => LuaTuple<[Content?]>;
}

export interface Connection {
	Disconnect: () => void;
}

export namespace BridgeNet2 {
	export function ReferenceBridge(name: string): Bridge;

	export function ClientBridge(name: string): ClientBridge;
	export function ServerBridge(name: string): ServerBridge;

	export function ReferenceIdentifier(name: string, maxWaitTime: number): Identifier;

	export function Serialize(identifierName: string): Identifier;
	export function Deserialize(compressedIdentifier: string): Identifier;

	export function ToHex(regularString: string): string;
	export function ToReadableHex(regularString: string): string;
	export function FromHex(hexadecimal: string): string;

	export function Players(players: Array<Player>): SetPlayerContainer;
	export function AllPlayers(): AllPlayerContainer;
	export function PlayersExcept(excludedPlayers: Array<Player>): ExceptPlayerContainer;

	export function CreateUUID(): string;

	export function HandleInvalidPlayer(handler: (player: Player) => void): void;
}

ffrostfall · August 1, 2023, 4:05am

version 0.5.3: 7/31/2023

Added

A mock API for when BridgeNet2 is ran in edit mode. Limitations: InvokeServerAsync will infinitely yield, connections will never run.

Improvements

BridgeNet2 nows prints the current version upon being loaded
Improved output readability
Potentially breaking: Bridges now are cached- this means you will have the same bridge object across scripts. This should be more expected behavior, and should overall be an improvement.

Fixes

Potentially fixed some issues with loading and identifiers?
Fixed a bug where referencing a bridge multiple times clearing connections each time (Except on the client this time)

NotRapidV · August 2, 2023, 2:35am

Would this module assist in network-related memory usage as well?

au_tk · August 2, 2023, 5:50am

Hi! Not sure if I’m just being a dumbo or something, but I keep running into this error when trying to fire a table to the client.

Here’s the code I am using:

--// ServerScript "Test" in workspace
task.wait(5)
local BridgeNet = require(path_To_BridgeNet2)
local Bridge = BridgeNet.ReferenceBridge("TEST")
Bridge.Logging = true
warn("Firing!")
Bridge:Fire(
	{
		[BridgeNet.ReferenceIdentifier("Hello", 10)] = 1,
		[BridgeNet.ReferenceIdentifier("World_ExclamationMark", 10)] = 2
	}
)

--// LocalScript in StarterPlayer
--there is no wait so the client should load before the bridge is fired
require(path_To_BridgeNet2).ReferenceBridge("TEST"):Once(print) --changing this to connect also results in the same error

This is using the latest version v0.5.3.

LilPrincesses123 · August 2, 2023, 8:03am

In the latest release, the module errors out.
There’s was a commit for fixing the release. Could we get a new standalone release with this fix?

ffrostfall · August 4, 2023, 12:42am

This has been fixed, I thought I replied here saying it was. I suppose I didn’t.
You should be able to get the latest standalone release and it should work.

ffrostfall · August 4, 2023, 12:42am

You need to reference the identifiers before using them.
Also, the first argument on the server is for the player. Not the data.

ffrostfall · August 4, 2023, 5:35am

Upcoming BridgeNet2 features

Logging output will be recursive: you can see table contents of everything
Logged stack traces when a bridge is called
Identifier and middleware API overhaul
Labeling connections in the microprofiler
Logging specific connections (Connection.Logging property)

au_tk · August 4, 2023, 6:27am

Thank you! I can’t believe I overlooked that.
It seems to work fine now that I actually inputted the player argument. I didn’t seem to have to change the identifiers since they started working when I plugged in the player, and the yield error was on my end. Turns out I had it backwards when yielding for the bridge.

ffrostfall · August 21, 2023, 6:16am

version 0.5.4: 8/19/2023

Added

You can now name connections, which will show up in logging and in the microprofiler.
Calling script and line are now shown for connections and firing bridges

Improvements

Type improvements

ffrostfall · August 26, 2023, 11:10pm

version 0.5.5: 8/26/2023

Fixes

All coroutine.resume instances have been replaced with task.spawn. This fixes a lot of obscure bugs.

thebrickplanetboy · August 27, 2023, 6:13am

What happened to the API page?