Network Protocol/PARAM-STRING

Overview

This article describes the record type PARAM-STRING of the Network Protocol. This record is a protocol that transfers named parameters and their values. The complete data is sent as an ASCII string using the format \NAME1\VALUE1\NAME2\VALUE2\NAME3\VALUE3\...\FINAL\. The PARAM-STRING itself is not null terminated, only the packet length defines the end of the string. The backslash character is used as a separator and cannot be used inside value names. After splitting the string at the backslash separator, it has an even number of substrings. Two substrings together are one PARAMETER with a NAME and a VALUE. The parameter LIST is always terminated by a final parameter with an empty value. A PARAM-STRING may contain one or more LISTS. If TCP is used for data transmission, the PSH flag is always set to push all buffered data to the receiving application and to avoid an unwanted data split.

Naming Convention and Syntax

PARAM_STRING    := COMPLETE_LIST  [ PARAM_STRING ]
COMPLETE_LIST   := LIST  FINAL_PARAM
LIST            := PARAMETER  [ LIST ]
PARAMETER       := '\' NAME '\' VALUE
NAME            := NAME_CHAR  [ NAME ]
NAME_CHAR       := 'a' | 'b' | ... | 'z'
VALUE           := VALUE_CHAR  [ VALUE ]
VALUE_CHAR      := any_but_not_backslash
FINAL_PARAMETER := '\final\'

Notes:

any_but_not_backslash - Use any character (even an ASCII control character) except a backslash.
... - A character or string.
[...] - Optional parts. They are often used as self reference to define a list of the same element.
| - An alternative element. Use exactly one of the alternatives.
If there is a slash in the data that does not indicate a new sub section, it is escaped with "/1". A backslash in the data (not indicating a new parameter) is escaped with "/2".

Display Scheme

The following would be an example.

\name1\\name2\VALUE2\name3\VALUE3\final\\name4\\name5\VALUE5\final\

A more readable representation of the same string is:

    name1 =
    name2 = VALUE2
    name3 = VALUE3
    final /
    name4 =
    name5 = VALUE5
    final /

Sublists

Some values itself are a parameter list with a different separator character. Two examples are statstring and msg.

statstring = /SCM/1/SCN/0/VER/90
msg = |s|1|ss|/SCM/1/SCN/0/VER/90|ls||ip|633988064|p|0|qm|0

Interesting is, that msg contains a statstring (abbreviated to ss) third level sub list.

Special Packets

Sometime you can find packets with 0, 2 or 6 null bytes. These packets without content are used for TCP sync, finish, reset and acknowledge (see the TCP flags byte).

Examples

In the following example, the parameter statstring contains a parameter string with a slash as separator.

          status = 1
         sesskey = 262611642
      statstring = /SCM/1/SCN/0/VER/90
       locstring =
           final /

       updatepro =
         sesskey = 262611642
       firstname = Wii:[email protected]
       partnerid = 11
           final /

In the next example, the parameter msg contains a parameter string with a pipe as separator.

              bm = 100
               f = 295941470
             msg = |s|0|ss|Offline
           final /

Network Protocol

Information:
Nintendo's Servers – Friend Code – Nick – Dumping Network Traffic

Record Types:
HEADER – ROOM – SELECT – USER
RACEHEADER_1 – RACEHEADER_2 – RACEDATA – ITEM – EVENT
NATNEG – ANNOUNCE – QUIT – STATUS – PARAM-STRING

Wiimmfi Extensions:
Online Status – Connection Status – Wiimmfi packets – Server SV

Software:
Wiimms mkw-ana