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Developer’s Guide to
Multiplayer Games

Andrew Mulholland
and

Teijo Hakala

Wordware Publishing, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mulholland, Andrew.
Developer’s guide to multiplayer games / by Andrew Mulholland and Teijo Hakala.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-55622-868-6 (pbk.)
1. Computer games--Programming. I. Hakala, Teijo. II. Title.

QA76.76.C672 M85 2001

795.8'15--dc21 2001046789
CIP

© 2002, Wordware Publishing, Inc.

All Rights Reserved
2320 Los Rios Boulevard
Plano, Texas 75074

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by

any means without permission in writing from
Wordware Publishing, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 1-55622-868-6
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
0109

OpenGL is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc.

Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
Other product names mentioned are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.

All inquiries for volume purchases of this book should be addressed to Wordware Publishing, Inc., at the above
address. Telephone inquiries may be made by calling:
(972) 423-0090
Contents

Theory Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 1 Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio . . . . . . . . 3

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Windows Messaging System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Creating a Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Sending Information to Your Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Introduction to Static Link Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Creating a Static Link Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Using a Static Link Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Final Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Chapter 2 Internet-Based Database Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Installing MySQL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Linux Specific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Windows Specific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Overview of MySQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Creating a Database in MySQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Adding Tables to a Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Adding Data to Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Viewing Data in a Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Adding Extra Fields to Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Updating Data in a Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Ordering Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Retrieving the Last Data Entered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Limiting Output Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Deleting Data from a Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Deleting Tables and Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Relational Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Creating Our Relational Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Player Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Payment Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Rel Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Rel Enemies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Adding Relational Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Manipulating the Friend and Enemy Relational Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

iii
Contents

Other Methods of Data Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Text File Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Native Database Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Backup and Restoration of Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
MySQL C++ Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Example 1 — Connecting and Retrieving Data from MySQL. . . . . . . . . . 84
Example 2 — Updating Data in MySQL from an Application . . . . . . . . . . 87
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Chapter 3 Communicating with the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Debugging Perl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
More Text Output Routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Using Files and Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Reading in a Text File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Writing to a Text File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Using Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Using Forms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Command Processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Retrieving the Date and Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Installing the Perl Database Interface (DBI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Connecting and Disconnecting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Retrieving and Displaying Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Adding New Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Using the Unique ID Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
DisplayData Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
AddData Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
DoAddData Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Modify Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
DoModifyData Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
DeleteData Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Adding a Search Facility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Chapter 4 Introduction to TCP/IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
What is a Protocol? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
OSI Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
OSI Model Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Internet Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Introduction to the Transport Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Transmission Control Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
User Datagram Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

iv
 Contents

Introduction to Sockets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Socket Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
History of WinSock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Choosing the Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Chapter 5 Basic Sockets Programming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
WinSock Initialization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
WSAStartup Function (Win32). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
WSACleanup Function (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
WSAEnumProtocols Function (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
WinSock Initialization Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Error Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
WSAGetLastError Function (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Sockets Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Platform Specific Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Address Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
IPv4 Address Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
IPv6 Address Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Generic Address Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Basic Sockets Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Socket Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Bind Function (Unix, Win32). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Connect Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Listen Function (Unix, Win32). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Accept Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Close Function (Unix)/Closesocket Function (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Input/Output Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Send Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Recv Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Sendto Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Recvfrom Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Address Data Conversion Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Inet_aton Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Client/Server Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Server Methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Byte Ordering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Creating a Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
TCP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
UDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Simple Echo TCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Main Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
InitSockets Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

v
Contents

ServerProcess Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Simple Echo UDP Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
InitSockets Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
ServerProcess Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Creating a Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
TCP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
UDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Simple Echo TCP Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Main Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
InitSockets Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
ClientProcess Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Simple Echo UDP Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
InitSockets Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
ClientProcess Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Running the Simple Echo Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Chapter 6 I/O Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Detecting Network Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Select Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
WSAAsyncSelect Function (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
WSAEventSelect Function (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
WSAWaitForMultipleEvents Function (Win32). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Event Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Multithreading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
What is Multithreading? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
CreateThread Function (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Pthread_Create Function (Unix). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
I/O Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Blocking I/O. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Non-blocking I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Signal-Driven I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Multiplexing I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
I/O Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Ioctl (Unix)/IoctlSocket Function (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
SetSockOpt/GetSockOpt Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Shutdown Function (Unix, Win32). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Broadcasting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Searching for Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Broadcast Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

vi
 Contents

Tutorial Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Tutorial 1 Using Our 2D Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Configuring Visual Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Creating a Skeleton Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Creating the Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Adding the Static Libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Adding the Source File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Creating a Basic Windowed Application with 2DLib . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
The WinMain Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
The Windows Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
The Complete Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Using the 2DLib Graphics Routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Graphical Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
2D Positions on the Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Use of Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Plotting a Single Pixel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Drawing a Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Drawing a Rectangle/Filled Rectangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Drawing a Triangle/Filled Triangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Graphic Loading Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Graphics Display (Blitting) Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Keyboard Input Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
2DLib Example 1 — Moving Primitives with the Cursor Keys . . . . . . . . 275
Complete Code Listing for Example 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
2DLib Example 2 — Loading and Rotating Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Complete Code Listing for Example 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Tutorial 2 Creating Your Network Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Why Create a Network Library of Our Own? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Planning the Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Planning the Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Identifying Hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Sending Data to Hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Building the Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Windows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Unix/Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Creating Independent Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Creating Definitions for Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Protocol Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Transport Protocol Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Internet Protocol Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Log System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

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Setting Up Source and Header Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

NET_Socket Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Individual Setup Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
NET_Socket Class Initialization Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Constructor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Destructor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Shutdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Closing Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Closing Input Event Handle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Setting the Local Host Offline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Setting Blocking/Non-Blocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Message System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Sending/Receiving Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Read Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
ReadFrom Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Write Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
WriteTo Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
WriteAll Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Host ID System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Finding Next Free Host Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Giving Local ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Creating the Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
CreateServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
CreateWinServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
CreateTCPServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
CreateWinTCPServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Accepting a Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Connecting to the Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
ConnectToServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
CloseConnection Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Multithreading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Handling Network Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
WinHandleEvents Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
ProcessMessages Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Message Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Complete Independent Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
NET_Socket Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Constructor/Destructor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
RemoteHost Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
Initializing/Uninitializing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Blocking/Non-blocking I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Sending/Receiving Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Read Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
ReadFrom Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Write Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
WriteTo Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

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WriteAll Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

Message Buffer System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
Message Buffer Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
ReadToBuffer Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
ProcessMessageBuffer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
ProcessMessages Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Buffered Function Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
WinHandleEvents Function (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Platform-Dependent Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
NET_WinIOThreadFunc (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
NET_WinUDPServerIOThreadFunc (Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
NET_UnixIOThreadFunc (Unix) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
NET_UnixUDPServerIOThreadFunc (Unix) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Give Local ID Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
GiveLocalIdTCP Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
GiveLocalIdUDP Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Creating a Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
CreateServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
CreateWinServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
CreateUnixServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
CreateTCPServer and CreateUDPServer Functions. . . . . . . . . . . 399
CreateWinTCPServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
CreateUnixTCPServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
NET_UnixPollAcceptFunc Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
CreateWinUDPServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
CreateUnixUDPServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
AcceptConnection Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Connecting to a Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
ConnectToServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
CloseConnection Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Shutdown Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Tutorial 3 Creating the Login System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Creating the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Creating Our Basic Client Application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Integrating the Login System (Part 1). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Creating Our Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Coding the Login System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Creating the Login Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
LobbyLogin Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
LobbyLoginFeedback Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
LobbyCreateAccount Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
LobbyCreateAccountFeedback Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

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The Header File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

The Main Server File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
Server Application — Complete Code Listing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Integrating the Login System (Part 2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
Client Application — Complete Code Listing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
Executing the Login System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

Tutorial 4 Creating the Game Lobby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
Creating the Lobby Client Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
Creating the Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Lobby Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Create Game Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
Create View Players Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
Join Game Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
Game Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
Main.cpp/Main.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
Netcommon.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
Init.cpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
Chat System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
TutChatClass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
SendMessage Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
Handling Chat Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
HandleChatMessages Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Player Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Logging In. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
LoginToServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Game Lobby. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Lobby Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
LogoutFromServer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Handling Remove Player Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
RemovePlayer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
LobbyRefreshPlayerList Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Creating a New Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
CreateGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
CreateGameDialogProc Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
DoCreateGame Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
CreateViewPlayers Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
CreateViewPlayersDialogProc Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
DoDestroyGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Joining a Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512
JoinGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512
DoJoinGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
JoinGameDialogProc Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
DoLogoff Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514
Updating the Lobby Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

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LobbyRefreshJoinedPlayerList Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

LobbyRefreshGameList Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Creating the Lobby Server Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
PlayerServed_t Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
ArmyServerClass Init Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
ArmyServerClass Shutdown Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Handling Login Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
Handling Logout Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
LogoutPlayer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
HandlePlayerSync Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
HandleGameSync Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
Creating a Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
AddGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
DestroyGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
RemoveGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Joining a Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
JoinGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
LogOff Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
LogOffGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Handling Game Messages on the Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Handling Game Messages on the Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Handling the Game Host . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536

Tutorial 5 Creating Your Online Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Creating a Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Starting a Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
StartGame Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Receiving the Start Game Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Handling Main Application Window Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
ApplicationProc Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Updating the Game Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542
DoStartGame Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542
Game Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Player Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Local Player Movement Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
Data Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
Player Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
Bullet Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
Creating the Game World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
ENGINE_Init Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
ENGINE_GenerateRandomMap Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
ENGINE_AddPlayer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
ENGINE_Shutdown Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
Updating the Game World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
ENGINE_Render Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

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ENGINE_DrawMap Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553

ENGINE_ProcessInput Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
ENGINE_UpdatePlayers Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561
ENGINE_UpdateBullets Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
ENGINE_CheckBulletCollisions Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
ENGINE_CheckFlagCollisions Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Handling Player Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
ENGINE_AddBullet Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
Game Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
Running the Server on Unix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Main Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Daemon_init Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574

Appendix A Byte Ordering Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

htons Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
htonl Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
ntohs Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
ntohl Function (Unix, Win32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576

Appendix B NetLib.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585

xii
Introduction

With Internet technology developing rapidly, Internet gaming has become ever
more popular, while documentation on how to actually make Internet games
remains inadequate. Developer’s Guide to Multiplayer Games provides in-depth
coverage of all the major topics associated with online game programming, as
well as giving you easy-to-follow, step-by-step tutorials on how to create your
own fully functional network library, back-end MySQL database, and complete,
working online game!
The book contains two main areas. The first is dedicated to explaining practical
theory on how to utilize MySQL, Perl, sockets, and basic Windows dialog pro-
gramming. The second section consists of five extensive tutorials, leading you
through the stages of creating a working online game that you can both learn
from and expand upon.
After reading this book, you will have a solid knowledge of online game pro-
gramming and you will also be able to start making your own online games.
Also note that the companion CD-ROM contains all the source code from the
book and a ready-to-use version of the network library you will create in the
tutorial section.
We hope you enjoy reading and learning from this book as much as we have
enjoyed writing it!

xiii
About the Authors

Andrew Mulholland is currently working as lead

programmer at a software development company
in Scotland. He is also an undergraduate at the
University of Abertay in Dundee studying com-
puter games technology. His e-mail address is
[email protected].

Andrew Mulholland

Teijo Hakala is currently studying software engi-

neering at Jyväskylä Polytechnic in Finland and
specializes in network design, programming, and
optimization. He also has a wide variety of work
experience with computer technology. His e-mail
address is [email protected].

Teijo Hakala

xiv
Theory Introduction
The theory section of this book is full of practical information that will help you
understand how to make functional online games. We recommend that you read
this section thoroughly before attempting the tutorial section, as there is a lot of
knowledge that will benefit you here.
This section first covers the basics of dialog-based Windows programming,
which we will utilize in the tutorial section to create our login and lobby system
for the sample online game. Then we cover how to use MySQL and Perl to create
a back-end database for your game, allowing you to interact with game data
directly from a web browser. Then we give an introduction to TCP/IP and sockets,
followed by how to get started with sockets programming. Finally, we learn about
different ways to send data, and how to modify the behavior of our sockets.
First, let’s look at how to create dialog-based Windows applications…

1
Chapter 1

Creating Windows
Applications in
Visual Studio
Introduction
The most essential knowledge anyone can have is the basics. If you already know
how to create dialog-based Windows applications, skip past this chapter. If not,
this chapter will give you a quick and easy introduction to it so that you will find
the rest of this book more accessible.
The reason for learning this is to be able to create our server applications for
the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Windows Messaging System

Windows controls everything by the use of its messaging system. This is a funda-
mental idea to grasp if you wish to create any Windows-based applications. Within
this messaging system, tasks to be processed by the operating system are stored
in a queue. For example, when a user clicks a button in a window, a message is

3
 4 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio

added to the queue and is then sent to the appropriate window to inform it that the
button has been pressed.
When the operating system creates a window, the window continually checks
for messages being sent to it. If it receives a relevant message, it will react
accordingly; otherwise, it will send it back to the operating system to be
reprocessed.
Each window created is assigned a unique handle that is used to control and
determine which messages are relevant to that window. In code, this is defined as
the HWND, or window handle. The main reason behind this system is to allow for
multi-tasking and multithreading. This means that the operating system can run
more than one application in one instance, even though a processor can only han-
dle one task at a time.
There is a lot more to windows than this, but this should give you a reasonable
overview of how the system works.

Creating a Window
Load Microsoft Visual Studio and select File, New…
The following dialog box should now be visible in the center of the screen.

Figure 1-1

Select the Projects tab at the top of the dialog and then choose the Win32 Applica-
tion option on the main display. Select the location for your project, enter your
project’s name, and click OK.
 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio 5

Next, select the type of project you wish to create. Leave it on the default
option (An empty project) and click the Finish button. A project information box
appears; simply click OK in this box.
Now we are working with the Visual Studio main interface. Currently,
ClassView is active, but we are interested in FileView so select this tab.
Figure 1-2

FileView lists all of the C and C++ source and header files that are active in your
project. Currently we do not have any files in our project so we need to add our
main C++ source file.
Select File, New… as you did before, but this time select the Files tab instead
of Projects. The following dialog will be visible.
Figure 1-3

Select C++ Source File as shown in Figure 1-3 and type in the filename as
main.cpp. Click the OK button to add this empty file to your project.
You now have your main source file in your project, and it is visible in the
Visual Studio editor.
There are two main items required in a standard Windows program: the entry
point to your program, which is named WinMain, and the Windows callback proce-
dure (commonly named WndProc), which is used to keep your Windows
application up to date.
For what we require though, it is best to take the dialog approach, making it
even simpler to design and code. First, we need to add our dialog. Click File,
 6 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio

New… again, but this time select Resource Script. Type in the filename as
resource and click OK.
Once this is done, you will notice another tab has appeared between the
ClassView and FileView tabs. This tab is called ResourceView and allows you to
visually create and edit dialogs for use within your program.
Figure 1-4

Once you select the ResourceView tab, you will be presented with the resource
editor. Right-click on resource.rc in the main view and then left-click on the Insert
option. You will then be presented with the Insert Resource dialog box.
Figure 1-5

Select Dialog and click New. Now you will see a sample dialog box in front of you.
For now, we will not do much to it except change the name of the title bar and its
identifier that I will explain after the code below.
Double-click on the sample dialog box that Visual Studio created. Now a dialog
properties box can be seen. All we are interested in here is the ID, which will
probably be set to Idd_Dialog1, and the Caption, which should be Dialog. Let’s
change the ID to Idd_Client and the Caption to Window Example.
OK, now it’s time to go back and do some code. We have our dialog template
that we can call from our code so let’s use it. Here is the code required to make
your dialog appear on the screen:
// Simple Windows Code
#include <windows.h>
#include "resource.h"

LRESULT CALLBACK
ClientDlgProc(HWND DialogWindow, UINT Message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
// Process Messages
 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio 7

switch(Message)
{
case WM_INITDIALOG:
return FALSE;

case WM_COMMAND:
switch(wParam)
{
case IDCANCEL:
EndDialog(DialogWindow, FALSE);
return FALSE;
default:
break;
}
break;

default:
break;
}
return FALSE;
}

int APIENTRY
WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
DialogBox((HINSTANCE) hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDD_CLIENT), NULL,
(DLGPROC) ClientDlgProc);
return 0;
}

The OK button on the dialog can be pressed but will have no action, whereas the
Cancel button will close the dialog.

NOTE If you get an error and it tells you it can’t find afxres.h, you need to install
MFC support for Visual Studio, which comes with the Visual Studio package.

If you have never seen Windows code before, the code above may look complex
and a little confusing. Welcome to the world of Windows! It’s not that bad, honest.
Let’s start with the WinMain function. This is simply the point at which Win-
dows starts executing your code. Do not worry about the variables that are passed
in; they are controlled by Windows and are beyond the scope of this book.
The main issue here is the DialogBox function and callback procedure
(ClientDlgProc) that creates our dialog window on the screen. The first parameter
is the instance of the application that you simply take from the first parameter of
the WinMain function. Next is the identifier that we set when we created the
 8 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio

template for our dialog. The third parameter is of no interest to us so we set it to

NULL, but the final one is. This is a pointer to the update function for the dialog.
Each dialog you create requires this update function (basically the same idea as a
Windows procedure). In this update function is where you set the actions for but-
tons and other useful tools. So we set this update function to our callback function
for the dialog (ClientDlgProc). For example, the identifier for the Cancel button is
Idcancel. As you can see in the code, there is a Case statement for the Cancel but-
ton so when it is clicked, it will close the dialog window. Other buttons can be
easily added to the template using the toolbox on the template editor. Just remem-
ber that each button must contain a unique ID so you can reference it from within
your code.

Sending Information to Your Window

As well as being useful for debugging, being able to update information to a win-
dow is essential knowledge that can be used in many situations, such as displaying
how many players are connected to the game server.
First you have to add a static text string to the dialog window. To do this you
need to go back to the template editor by selecting the ResourceView tab as
before. Then you simply double-click on the Idd_Client text as seen below to
bring up your dialog in the main area.
Next, select the Aa button from the Controls toolbox and place it somewhere
on your dialog as shown in Figure 1-6. Now double-click on the text you added to
the dialog box to display its properties.
Figure 1-6

The dialog box shown in Figure 1-7 will now be visible on the screen. All we need
to change here is the ID. Change the text Idc_Static to Idc_Serverstatus. This will
give it more meaning when it comes to adding it into the code.
 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio 9

Figure 1-7

Now we have some text, and we want to be able to set it to a value from within
our code. For example, if we want the text to read “Server Online,” add the fol-
lowing lines of code after the line that contains “case WM_INITDIALOG”:
SendDlgItemMessage(DialogWindow,IDC_SERVERSTATUS, WM_SETTEXT,NULL,(long)"Server
Online");

Therefore, when the dialog box is initialized, Windows will send a message to the
dialog box to tell it to update the Idc_Serverstatus text with the string you sup-
plied in the function. In this case, it would update the text from “Static” to
“Server Online.”
The first parameter is the handle to the dialog, which is the first variable that
is passed into the dialog update procedure. The second is the identifier for what
you want to change or update. Next comes the command that you wish to send.
There are many commands and the best way to figure out how they work is just
to experiment with them. For now we are using WM_SETTEXT, which tells
Windows to change a static text string in a dialog box. The fourth parameter is
not used for the WM_SETTEXT command so we simply set it to NULL. The
final parameter is used to declare the string with which we want to update the
static text, in this case “Server Online.” Also, note that the string must be type-
cast to a long.

TIP Also try experimenting with editable text. It works on the same principles dis-
cussed above, and you simply send a WM_GETTEXT message to retrieve what the
user entered.

Introduction to Static Link Libraries

Later, when we create our online tutorial game, we will be using static link librar-
ies to encapsulate all our network and graphics code, which will make it easier to
reuse the code for future projects. In addition to the reusability factor, static link
libraries also protect your source code, but allow others to use the functionality of
your code.
When creating a static link library, you do not require a WinMain function or a
Windows update function (WndProc). This is because we are not actually creating
 10 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio

a program, rather just a collection of functions that we can use from within our
programs. The library is created using standard C/C++ source and header files,
but the output is a library rather than a Windows executable.
When you compile your library, the compiler will generate a library file with
the extension .lib. To use the functions in your library, you are required to include
it in your project and include the header file that was used to create the library
(which contains all the external variables, types, and function prototypes).
The easiest way to use your library is to create Lib and Include folders for your
library and include those directories in the Visual Studio directory settings that
are explained in the tutorial to follow.

Creating a Static Link Library

First, the best thing to do is to create a directory structure on your hard drive for
the library to be stored in. From our experience, we recommend the structure
shown in Figure 1-8.
Figure 1-8

n Examples All example programs that display how to use your library are
stored in this folder. This is probably one of the most useful things that can
accompany your library since the source code is not visible to any other pro-
grammer using it.
n Formats This is where you store any file formats specific to your static link
library (i.e., your own 3D model format).
n Include This stores the entire collection of C/C++ header files that are
needed to use your library. This is one of the directories that you must set up
in Visual Studio to make your library work.
n Lib This is where you actually store your complete library file and the other
directory required by Visual Studio. It is a good idea to include both the
release and debug versions of your library here so that it is possible to debug
and create final release applications with the libraries.
n Source All source code related to your library must be kept in this folder.
n Tools Any programming tools that are used alongside your library are stored
here (such as file format converters).
 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio 11

Now that we have our structure, we need to create a static link library project.
This is done by selecting File, New… in Visual Studio. The dialog box in Figure
1-9 should now be visible.
Figure 1-9

Select the Win32 Static Library option and enter a name for your library. Next,
select the location and press the OK button.
In the dialog box that appears, leave both the Pre-Compiled header and MFC
support options unchecked as we will not be using either in this book, and click
Finish. A project information box is now visible, but simply click OK here.
Next, we need to add our source and header files to the project as you did
when creating the window. Remember that this time we do not require the
WinMain or Update procedure, just functions that we wish to reuse. Let’s call the
source file library.cpp and the header file library.h for this example.
If you now press F7, it will build your library and put it in the Release or
Debug folder depending on your project configuration. The library will have the
same name as your project. For example, if your project is named gamephysics,
your library will be named gamephysics.lib.
It is a good idea to make Visual Studio automatically copy your header file and
library to the correct directories in your structure to assure that you are always
using the latest version. Selecting Project, Settings from the main menu makes
the dialog box in Figure 1-10 (shown on the following page) visible.
Set the Output file name for your library to whatever you wish to call your
library and choose where you want it to go relative to the directory your source
files are in. This must be done for both release and debug configurations. In the
previous dialog the debug settings are currently active.
 12 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio

Figure 1-10

TIP It is a good idea to have both debug and release versions of your library. Call
your release version the correct name (i.e., GamePhysics.lib) and add a suffix to
the debug version (i.e., GamePhysicsDebug.lib) to distinguish them easily.

Now the library file is created in the correct directory in our structure when the
project is built. We also want to copy our header file to the Include directory of our
structure.
As can be seen in Figure 1-11, you simply add a Post-build command that tells
the compiler to copy the header file(s) to the Include directory.
Figure 1-11
 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio 13

We have now covered the basics on how to create a static link library. The most
important thing to remember is to prototype all functions and make all the global
variables external that you wish to be accessible outside of your library. In the
next section, we will discuss how to set up Visual Studio to find your library.

Using a Static Link Library

Once you have built your library and it is in the correct directories, you need to
tell Visual Studio where to look for it. Select Tools, Options… from the main
Visual Studio menu to open the Options dialog box.
If the Directories tab is unselected, select it now to display a list of directories
like the one in Figure 1-12. Only the top three should be visible unless you have
previously added other static libraries.

Figure 1-12

You must now add the Include directory of your library for the Include files and
the Lib directory for the Library files. You select which one you wish to add by
changing the top-right pull-down box.
Now Visual Studio is able to find and recognize your static link library. To use
it in a program you have written, you must first load your project into Visual
Studio, then select Project, Settings...
Next, select the Link tab and add your library name before kernel32.lib. Also,
remember to include the header file for your library in your main code.
 14 Chapter 1 / Creating Windows Applications in Visual Studio

Final Notes
Here we have provided the basics of creating dialog-based applications in Visual
Studio. The best thing to do is experiment by creating dialogs, adding buttons, and
making the buttons set strings to different values when you press them. Also,
learn to use editable text as this is highly useful and allows the user to put feed-
back into your program.
If you are interested in learning more, there are entire books written on Win-
dows programming and there is also an excellent resource available on the
Internet (http://msdn.microsoft.com), but the quick introduction provided here
will give you enough knowledge to understand the concepts used in this book.

TIP Windows 98 Programming from the Ground Up by Herbert Schildt provides an

excellent way of understanding Windows programming.
Chapter 2

Internet-Based
Database Systems
Introduction
This chapter covers how to create a stable and fast database system for your game
server. In later chapters you will find out about ways to access it from sockets and
the Internet.
Although it is possible to store player information on the player’s local
machine, in reality it makes much more sense to store the data on the server for
many reasons. The first and most important reason is to avoid players running
“hacks” on their computer to change their character data in the game or even
backing the data up to another file. If the data is stored on the server, it makes it
impossible for the player to run a local game hack that will modify the character
data. Another reason for this is to allow players to play from different locations and
machines without having to copy their character data to another computer.
First, we will cover the installation of MySQL, an excellent, stable, and free
database system, on both the Linux and Windows operating systems.

15
 16 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

Installing MySQL
Linux Specific
First, you need to install a version of the Linux operating system and set up the
Apache web server as well as Perl 5. If you do not already have a copy of Linux,
we would recommend Red Hat version 6.2 or greater (http://www.redhat.com/).
Next, you need to download the file mysql-3.23.36-pc-linux-gnu-i686.tar.gz (a
newer version may be available but this chapter is based on this version) from
http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/MySQL-3.23/mysql-3.23.36-pc-linux-gnu-
i686.tar.gz or simply copy it off the CD-ROM supplied with the book.
Once you have this file, if it is not already on your Linux machine/server, you
need to upload it. When working with Linux, ensure that you are logged in as the
root user or some of the topics covered in this chapter may not work correctly. It
does not matter where you place this file on your Linux machine as long as you
keep a note of where it is.
Go to Linux and change to the directory to which you copied or uploaded the
file. Next, you need to enter the following list of commands to unpack and install
MySQL:
shell> groupadd mysql
shell> useradd -g mysql mysql
shell> cd /usr/local
shell> gunzip < /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz | tar xvf -
shell> ln -s mysql-VERSION-OS mysql
shell> cd mysql
shell> scripts/mysql_install_db
shell> chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql
shell> chgrp -R mysql /usr/local/mysql
shell> bin/safe_mysqld --user=mysql &

That’s all there is to installing MySQL on Linux. The last command you entered
started the MySQL daemon that controls all the connections to your database and
all the operations you are going to perform on it.
For the next part, you want to be able to access the MySQL console. To do
this, type the following from the /usr/local/mysql directory:
shell> ./bin/mysql
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 17

Windows Specific
Assuming you have a working version of Microsoft Windows 9x/NT on your com-
puter, you first need to download from http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/
MySQL-3.23/mysql-3.23.36-win.zip or copy from the companion CD the
mysql-3.23.36-win.zip file.
Unzip the file to a temporary folder (i.e., C:\temp\mySQL) using a program
such as WinZip (http://www.winzip.com). (There is an evaluation version of
WinZip on the CD-ROM.)
Next, go to the temporary directory where you extracted the files and double-
click on setup.exe to begin the MySQL setup program.
Follow the simple installation through; select the directory you wish to install
to, then just select the typical installation option and MySQL will be installed to
your computer.
Finally, you need to be able to access the MySQL console. To do this, go to the
directory in which you installed MySQL and then go into the bin directory. The
MySQL daemon will automatically be running so simply double-click on
MySQL.exe to bring up the console window.
The console window should appear as shown in Figure 2-1.
Figure 2-1

NOTE If for some reason the MySQL daemon is not running, you will want to be
able to start it manually. To do this go to the directory which you installed
MySQL into, and then go into the bin directory. Here you will find a file called
mysqld.exe. Double-click this file to start the MySQL daemon running. If you are
running Windows NT, use the mysqld-nt.exe file instead. Also, if you wish the
daemon to start every time you load Windows, simply add it to your start up
folder in your Start menu.
 18 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

Overview of MySQL
SQL is an acronym for structured query language. This means it accepts com-
mands in an easy to understand and structured format. We will be using the
console mode on MySQL to create our databases and tables that are contained
within it. Later in this chapter we are going to cover how to access them from
outside the console.
A database is structured as shown in Figure 2-2. You have several records of
data per table and several tables per database.
Figure 2-2

The first thing we need to do is create the database, as it is the foundation of the
complete system.

Creating a Database in MySQL

This is the easy part. You need to give your database a name; in this example, we
are going to use the name gamedata, as this database is going to store some basic
information about an online game.
So to create our gamedata database we would enter the following command at
the prompt in the MySQL console:
mysql> CREATE DATABASE gamedata;

If everything has gone according to plan, it will inform you that the query was OK
and that one row was affected.
We now have our database in the system. We can view all the databases that
have been created in MySQL by typing the following command:
mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 19

The console should now display a list of database names that are on the system;
you should also see your gamedata database there. Figure 2-3 shows what the
console should be displaying.

Figure 2-3

The final thing we must do is select which database we wish to work with. This is
done with the following command:
mysql> USE gamedata;

Now we will move on to how to add your tables into the database.

Adding Tables to a Database

Before adding tables to your database, it is a good idea to decide what data you
wish to contain within your tables. The most common types of data used in tables
are integers (int), strings (varchar), and time stamps (timestamp). Each table
should have a unique identifier, or an integer that is automatically incremented by
MySQL every time a record of data is added to the table.
We will start with a simple example. Let’s say we have to store several play-
ers’ character data in a database. For this we must store the following information
about the character for each player:
n Character Name
n X Position on the Map
n Y Position on the Map
n Current Experience Level
The character’s name will have a maximum length of 30 characters and the other
three variables will be integer values. Therefore, we need to create a table that
can hold this information and a unique identifier so we have an easy way of identi-
fying the data from other tables without duplicating information (see the section
 20 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

on relational databases). First we must make sure we are using the gamedata data-
base that we created previously. To make sure of this, type the following
command:
mysql> USE gamedata;

Now that is done, we can enter the following command to create our database that
we will call playerinfo. Note that it is fine to use the Return key to make it clearer
as the statement will only end when you add the semicolon.
mysql> CREATE TABLE playerinfo (
mysql> id INT AUTO_INCREMENT,
mysql> name VARCHAR(30),
mysql> xpos INT,
mysql> ypos INT,
mysql> exp INT,
mysql> PRIMARY KEY(id));

When you enter this, the console should look as follows.

Figure 2-4

This command will create the playerinfo table that can hold our information and
give it a unique identifier that will automatically increment every time a new
record of data is added into the table.
The Primary_Key() command is used to optimize the database for searching
for a particular variable in a table. Since we will be looking for the ID of a player
most, it makes sense to set this to the primary key for the table.
Next, it is a good idea to check that your table has been created correctly. It is
easy to correct a mistake at this stage, but becomes much more difficult once you
start adding data and using the system.
To check that our table now exists in the database, we want to use the follow-
ing command:
mysql> SHOW TABLES;
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 21

When you press Return, the following console screen should now be visible.
Figure 2-5

As you can see from the preceding figure, MySQL tells us that there is only one
table in the gamedata database now, which is our playerinfo table. More tables can
be added to the database, as we will see later in the relational databases section.
Another useful command is the Describe command, which allows us to see all
the data in a table. This command can be used to check that our table was created
the way we wanted it to be. The command is called as follows:
mysql> DESCRIBE playerinfo;

Once you press Return, the following will be displayed on the MySQL console.
Figure 2-6

As you can see from this screen, the first column denotes the names of the
fields we entered — id, name, xpos, ypos, and exp. The next column tells us the
type. This is the one we should check carefully as the database will obviously not
work as you would hope if you try to place a string into integer storage. Take note
 22 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

also that the id field is never NULL as it will always be automatically assigned a
unique integer value by MySQL every time data is added to the table. The final
column specifies any special cases you have assigned to the fields; in this case, we
have asked the id field to be assigned a unique number so auto_increment appears
in this column.
That’s all there is to adding standalone tables that do not interact with each
other. We will find out later in this chapter how to add tables that interact with
each other using the unique ID system. Next, however, we will cover how to add
data into the table we have created from the MySQL console and also from differ-
ent types of files.

Adding Data to Tables

Data can be added directly into tables from the MySQL console, although there
are many other ways to add in data, which we will cover later in this chapter.
To add data to a table directly from the console, we use the MySQL Insert
command. Let’s say we want to add the following information into the table we
created in the last section, playerinfo.
Name: Jeff Henderson
X Position: 14
Y Position: 35
Experience: 1431

To insert this into our table we would use the following syntax:
mysql> INSERT INTO playerinfo VALUES
mysql> (NULL,’Jeff Henderson’,14,35,1431);

This would be displayed on the MySQL console as follows.

Figure 2-7
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 23

Notice that the first data we enter into the table is a NULL. This is to tell MySQL
to automatically assign that data. Since we also have an Auto_Increment setup for
the first column of data, it will automatically change that NULL into a unique inte-
ger for the data we are entering. The rest is straightforward; first, we tell MySQL
what table we wish to insert data into (in this case, playerinfo), followed by the
values we wish to insert into the table. We can also add more than one segment of
information at once by simply placing a comma after each complete set of data.
Let’s assume we want to add another three players into the database and their
information is as follows:
Name: Sandra Smith
X Position: 21
Y Position: 86
Experience: 4563

Name: John Brooke

X Position: 10
Y Position: 5
Experience: 231

Name: Jennifer West

X Position: 13
Y Position: 73
Experience: 5400

The console command and screenshot should look as follows:

mysql> INSERT INTO playerinfo VALUES
mysql> (NULL,’Sandra Smith’,21,86,4563),
mysql> (NULL,’John Brooke’,10,5,231),
mysql> (NULL,’Jennifer West’,13,73,5400);

Figure 2-8
 24 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

If everything has gone according to plan, we should now have four records of data
in our playerinfo table in the gamedata database.

Viewing Data in a Table

We can easily view all the information within a table by using the Select command.
You can select any data you want from a table and even specify conditions (for
example, only select entries that have more than 1,000 experience points). This is
one of the most useful commands to us, and we will be using it extensively in
Chapter 3 and in our tutorial game.
To select all the data from our table, we would use the following Select
command:
mysql> SELECT * FROM playerinfo;

This selects all the fields and records from our playerinfo table. Therefore, the
output from the console should contain four records of information and display all
the data from each of the records. Figure 2-9 shows the expected output.
Figure 2-9

As you can see from the figure, all the data has been entered into the table cor-
rectly. Also, note how the id field has been incremented automatically for each
record as we intended.
Let’s now say we only want to display the name and experience data. Again,
we want all the records, but we only want to select the correct fields, which in this
case are name and exp. To do this we would again use the Select command, but
instead of using the “*” wildcard, we specify the fields we wish to display.
mysql> SELECT name,exp FROM playerinfo;
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 25

The preceding command will select all the name and experience fields from the
playerinfo table. Therefore, our expected output will be a four-row list of names
and experience levels. This should look as follows.

Figure 2-10

As we mentioned before, we can also use a Where command after Select, to add
conditions the data must satisfy before it is selected. Let’s say for example, we
only wanted to see the players that had more that 1,000 experience points. We
would use the following statement to retrieve this information from the table:
mysql> SELECT * FROM playerinfo WHERE exp > 1000;

When we execute this command by pressing Enter, MySQL will attempt to select
all the data for the players that have an experience level greater than 1,000. This
means that only Jeff, Sandra and Jennifer should be visible. Figure 2-11 shows the
expected output.
Figure 2-11
 26 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

As well as comparing if a value is greater than a given number, we can also check
if it is less than or simply equal to it. Let’s get the player’s ID and name from the
table if his or her y position is equal to 86. We would use the following command
to do this:
mysql> SELECT id,name FROM playerinfo WHERE ypos = 86;

As Sandra Smith is the only player with a y position of 86, she is the only person
who should now be displayed in the console. We should only be able to see her ID
and name as that is all we asked to select from the table. Figure 2-12 shows the
expected output.
Figure 2-12

In addition to numeric comparisons, we can also compare strings of text. There

are two useful methods for doing this. The first is a straight comparison, to check
if one string of text is exactly equal to another. Let’s say we want to see the ID, x
position, and y position for John Brooke. We would use the following command to
select this information from the table.
mysql> SELECT id,xpos,ypos FROM playerinfo WHERE name = “John Brooke”;

Figure 2-13 shows what will happen when we execute the command. As you can
see, the id and coordinates for John Brooke are now visible.
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 27

Figure 2-13

The other method is to use the MySQL Like command that allows you, for exam-
ple, to select all names starting with a specific letter. If we wanted to select all the
players from the table whose names started with the letter “J,” we would use the
following syntax:
mysql> SELECT * FROM playerinfo WHERE name LIKE “J%”;

When executed, this command would produce the following output on the console.

Figure 2-14

As you can see from the command, the “J%” tells MySQL to select all the names
starting with “J.” The percentage sign in this case is used as a wildcard and can be
used in many combinations to produce useful results. Another example of the Like
command would be to select any name (string) that contains a certain letter or
phrase.
Let’s try to select any name that contains the letter “S” anywhere, not just the
start. To do this we would simply place the wildcard (%) at either side of the letter,
 28 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

making the location where it finds the letter irrelevant. We would therefore use
the following command to accomplish this:
mysql> SELECT * FROM playerinfo WHERE name LIKE “%S%”;

The only name which does not contain the letter “S” is John Brooke, so the other
three names should be visible as shown here.
Figure 2-15

Adding Extra Fields to Tables

Let’s say now that we want to add an extra field into our table that will store the
date and time the player last logged in to the game. For this data, we use the
timestamp storage type in the database. To add a field we use the Alter command.
With this command we can add fields and also modify existing fields if we wish, for
example, to change the data type. We use the syntax below to add a field to hold
the time and date of the players last login:
mysql> ALTER TABLE playerinfo ADD lastlogin TIMESTAMP;

Here is how it would look when we execute it from the MySQL console.
Figure 2-16
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 29

Now, if we use the Describe command on the playerinfo table, we notice that the
lastlogin field has been added to the end of the table. To describe the table we use
the following command:
mysql> DESCRIBE playerinfo;

When we execute this, we should see the output from the console as shown in
Figure 2-17. Note the new row at the end, which is our new timestamp field.

Figure 2-17

We can also use the Alter command to change the data type of a field. Let’s say we
have decided to allow the players to have 50 characters in their name instead of
the 30 we allocated when we first created the table. To accomplish this we again
use the Alter command, but instead of Add we use the Modify command as shown
here:
mysql> ALTER TABLE playerinfo MODIFY name VARCHAR(50);

When we execute the command in the console, we should see that our four rows
of data have been affected. The data has not actually changed, although the stor-
age space for the field has. Figure 2-18 shows the expected console output.

Figure 2-18
 30 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

We can again describe the table to check that our changes have gone as planned.
Figure 2-19 shows the expected console output from the Describe command.
Figure 2-19

As you can see from the console output, the type for the name field is varchar(50)
instead of our original varchar(30).

Updating Data in a Field

Now that we have a timestamp in our table, we wish to set it to the time and date
the player last logged in. This value will change each time they login. Up to this
point we have had no control of the data after it has been added into a table. Now
we are going to learn how to update the data from the console without affecting
the rest of the data in the record. In later chapters, we will also learn how to
update information remotely both from the Internet (Perl) and from applications
(sockets).
In the last section, when we added the timestamp to the table, the four records
we previously added to the table’s timestamps will be set to the time we added
the timestamp field to the table. This can be seen in Figure 2-20.
Figure 2-20
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 31

A timestamp is a single large integer that represents the date and time. The first
four digits represent the year. The next two represent the month and the two after
that represent the day of the month. The next four digits are for the time in 24-
hour format. The final two digits represent the seconds. Figure 2-21 shows a
summary.

Figure 2-21

The reasoning for this structure is to allow for easy comparison with other
timestamps and easy storage in the database. With this method of storage, it is
simple to use basic integer comparisons, such as greater than or less than, to find
out if a timestamp is before or after another timestamp or a specific date and/or
time. Another feature of the timestamps is if you specify the data in MySQL as
NULL for a timestamp, MySQL automatically places the system date and time in
the database, which can be very useful to us, as you will see in the example to
follow.
Now that we have our timestamp field in our table, let’s try updating the values
in our four existing entries. To update information in a table, we use the MySQL
Update command. Now we will update Jeff Henderson’s timestamp to be the cur-
rent system time. Simply updating the timestamp field with NULL does this. The
syntax for this function is:
mysql> UPDATE playerinfo SET lastlogin = NULL WHERE name = “Jeff Henderson”;

First we will tell MySQL that we wish to update a table. Then we specify the
table name, which in this case is our playerinfo table. Then we must tell it what to
update. Here we tell it to set the lastlogin field to NULL (which means set it to
the current date and time). If we excluded the Where from the end of the com-
mand, it would simply update all the lastlogin fields for all the entries (records) in
the table. So we want to specify which record we wish to update, which in this
case is Jeff Henderson’s record. When we execute the command, we should see
that one row was found and one row was changed. You can see the expected out-
put in Figure 2-22.
 32 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

Figure 2-22

Now, when we select all the data from the table, we notice that Jeff Henderson’s
lastlogin date and time has been set to the time when we executed the command.
See Figure 2-23 for the expected output.
Figure 2-23

In addition to automatically setting the date and time with MySQL, we can manu-
ally set it simply by inputting the correct integer, as long as we ensure it is in the
correct format. Let’s manually set Sandra Smith’s lastlogin date to the following:
14th March 1999 at 3:35pm (and no seconds)

To do this, we again use the Update command, but we do not set the timestamp to
NULL. The integers we require for this are as follows:
Year: 2001
Month: 03
Day: 14
Hour: 15
Minutes: 35
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 33

Seconds: 00

Therefore, our integer is: 20010314153500. We then put this into the command as
follows:
mysql> UPDATE playerinfo SET lastlogin = “20010314153500”
WHERE name = “Sandra Smith”;

Our expected output from the execution of this command can be seen in Figure
2-24. Notice that one row (record) was matched and changed.
Figure 2-24

This time when we select all the records from the table, we can see that Sandra’s
information has been updated to the date and time we specified. See the expected
output in Figure 2-25.

Figure 2-25

Note that when you are updating information in a table, you can use any of the
Where cases that we have discussed before in the chapter, so we could, for
 34 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems

example, set all the experience levels to 1,000 for people whose names start with
“J” like this:
mysql> UPDATE playerinfo SET exp = 1000 WHERE name LIKE “J%”;

When executed, this command will update all the players with a name starting
with “J” and set their experience levels to 1,000. In our table, we have three play-
ers whose names start with “J,” so you can see from Figure 2-26 that there are
three matching rows (records) and that three were changed (updated).
Figure 2-26

Now, if we select the data, you will see in Figure 2-27 that Jeff, John, and Jennifer
all have an experience level of 1,000.

Figure 2-27

It is also possible to check more than one field when updating or selecting infor-
mation from a table. For example, if you wanted to display the information of all
the players whose x coordinate lies between the values of 10 and 20, you would
use the following command:
 Chapter 2 / Internet-Based Database Systems 35

mysql> SELECT * FROM playerinfo WHERE xpos > 10 AND xpos < 20;

We can also use this method with the Update command. If we wanted to set the
experience level to 500 for all the players with an x coordinate greater than 10 and
less than 20, we would use the following command:
mysql> UPDATE playerinfo SET exp = 500 WHERE xpos > 10 AND xpos < 20;

When we execute this command, we will see that two rows (records) have been
updated. This can be seen in Figure 2-28.

Figure 2-28

The two records that were updated were Jeff’s and Jennifer’s. Their x coordinates
lie between the parameters we specified, hence they were updated with the new
information. The expected output can be seen in Figure 2-29. Notice Jeff’s and
Jennifer’s experience levels are now both set to 500.

Figure 2-29
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