tendermint/docs/specs/wire-protocol.md

# Wire Protocol

The [Tendermint wire protocol](https://github.com/tendermint/go-wire) encodes data in [c-style binary](#binary) and [JSON](#json) form.

## Supported types

- Primitive types
  - `uint8` (aka `byte`), `uint16`, `uint32`, `uint64`
  - `int8`, `int16`, `int32`, `int64`
  - `uint`, `int`: variable length (un)signed integers
  - `string`, `[]byte`
  - `time`
- Derived types
  - structs
  - var-length arrays of a particular type
  - fixed-length arrays of a particular type
  - interfaces: registered union types preceded by a `type byte`
  - pointers

## Binary

**Fixed-length primitive types** are encoded with 1,2,3, or 4 big-endian bytes.
  - `uint8` (aka `byte`), `uint16`, `uint32`, `uint64`: takes 1,2,3, and 4 bytes respectively
  - `int8`, `int16`, `int32`, `int64`: takes 1,2,3, and 4 bytes respectively
  - `time`: `int64` representation of nanoseconds since epoch

**Variable-length integers** are encoded with a single leading byte representing the length of the following big-endian bytes.  For signed negative integers, the most significant bit of the leading byte is a 1.

  - `uint`: 1-byte length prefixed variable-size (0 ~ 255 bytes) unsigned integers
  - `int`: 1-byte length prefixed variable-size (0 ~ 127 bytes) signed integers

NOTE: While the number 0 (zero) is encoded with a single byte `x00`, the number 1 (one) takes two bytes to represent: `x0101`.  This isn't the most efficient representation, but the rules are easier to remember.

| number       | binary `uint` | binary `int`  |
| ------------ | ------------- | ------------- |
| 0            | `x00`         | `x00`         |
| 1            | `x0101`       | `x0101`       |
| 2            | `x0102`       | `x0102`       |
| 256          | `x020100`     | `x020100`     |
| 2^(127*8)-1  | `x7FFFFF...`  | `x7FFFFF...`  |
| 2^(127*8)    | `x800100...`  | overflow      |
| 2^(255*8)-1  | `xFFFFFF...`  | overflow      |
| -1           | n/a           | `x8101`       |
| -2           | n/a           | `x8102`       |
| -256         | n/a           | `x820100`     |

**Structures** are encoded by encoding the field values in order of declaration.

```go
type Foo struct {
    MyString string
    MyUint32 uint32
}
var foo = Foo{"626172", math.MaxUint32}

/* The binary representation of foo:
 0103626172FFFFFFFF
 0103:               `int` encoded length of string, here 3
     626172:         3 bytes of string "bar"
           FFFFFFFF: 4 bytes of uint32 MaxUint32
*/
```

**Variable-length arrays** are encoded with a leading `int` denoting the length of the array followed by the binary representation of the items.  **Fixed-length arrays** are similar but aren't preceded by the leading `int`.

```go
foos := []Foo{foo, foo}

/* The binary representation of foos:
 01020103626172FFFFFFFF0103626172FFFFFFFF
 0102:                                     `int` encoded length of array, here 2
     0103626172FFFFFFFF:                   the first `foo`
                       0103626172FFFFFFFF: the second `foo`
*/

foos := [2]Foo{foo, foo} // fixed-length array

/* The binary representation of foos:
 0103626172FFFFFFFF0103626172FFFFFFFF
 0103626172FFFFFFFF:                   the first `foo`
                   0103626172FFFFFFFF: the second `foo`
*/
```

**Interfaces** can represent one of any number of concrete types.  The concrete types of an interface must first be declared with their corresponding `type byte`.  An interface is then encoded with the leading `type byte`, then the binary encoding of the underlying concrete type.

NOTE: The byte `x00` is reserved for the `nil` interface value and `nil` pointer values.

```go
type Animal interface{}
type Dog uint32
type Cat string

RegisterInterface(
    struct{ Animal }{},          // Convenience for referencing the 'Animal' interface
    ConcreteType{Dog(0),  0x01}, // Register the byte 0x01 to denote a Dog
    ConcreteType{Cat(""), 0x02}, // Register the byte 0x02 to denote a Cat
)

var animal Animal = Dog(02)

/* The binary representation of animal:
 010102
 01:     the type byte for a `Dog`
   0102: the bytes of Dog(02)
*/
```

**Pointers** are encoded with a single leading byte `x00` for `nil` pointers, otherwise encoded with a leading byte `x01` followed by the binary encoding of the value pointed to.

NOTE: It's easy to convert pointer types into interface types, since the `type byte` `x00` is always `nil`.

## JSON

The JSON codec is compatible with the [`binary`](#binary) codec, and is fairly intuitive if you're already familiar with golang's JSON encoding.  Some quirks are noted below:

- variable-length and fixed-length bytes are encoded as uppercase hexadecimal strings
- interface values are encoded as an array of two items: `[type_byte, concrete_value]`
- times are encoded as rfc2822 strings