Client API

There are only three possible actions a client can take (currently) on the database: Adding a file, removing a block, or getting a block.

To Get a Block: {"msg":"get","key":<KEY>}

Note that upon successful retrieval, the server will send back: {"msg":"get","key":<KEY>,"val":<VALUE>}
And then upon a missing block you should get back: {"msg":"err","val":"missing"}
Other errors will have different values for "val".
The connection will remain open for further messages.

To Delete a Block: {"msg":"del","key":<KEY>,"oid":<OID>}

To Add a Block: {"msg":"add","expires":<EXPIRES>,"removable":<REMOVABLE>}

Note after sending this message, the connection switches modes and will only accept block messages of the form: {"key":<KEY>,"val":<VALUE>}
As verification that the mode has been switched over, the server will first send the generated ownership id: {"msg":"ack","oid":<OID>}
Once all block messages are finished, closing the connection cleanly will tell the server to complete it's buffer of block adds.

Variable Definitions:

<KEY> - DISTRESS makes no requirements on what a key can be, but for our client we are using hashes of size 384.
<VALUE> - DISTRESS, like keys, makes no requirements on what values can be, but for our client we are using block sizes of 512 bytes.
<OID> - This will be a string of a UUID RFC4122 version 4. We have not experimented with alternative ownership ids.
<REASON> - This will be a string. It will most commonly be "badarg" if not "missing" which means your message was poorly constructed or missing a value.
<EXPIRES> - This will either need to be the string, "infinity" or an integer unix timestamp of a future time/date. This is an optional value, as it defaults to "infinity".
<REMOVABLE> - This needs to be a JSON boolean value. This is an optional value, as it defaults to false.

Navigation Menu