Message Helpers

Handling incoming messages

When listening out for a response to a sent message (e.g. if you have sent a request to a service, and are awaiting the response) you will want to await non-empty messages (if you don't know why, read the info on this here). This can be done with something like the helper functions here:

use nym_sdk::mixnet::ReconstructedMessage;
 
pub async fn wait_for_non_empty_message(
    client: &mut MixnetClient,
) -> anyhow::Result<ReconstructedMessage> {
    while let Some(mut new_message) = client.wait_for_messages().await {
        if !new_message.is_empty() {
            return Ok(new_message.pop().unwrap());
        }
    }
 
    bail!("did not receive any non-empty message")
}
 
pub fn handle_response(message: ReconstructedMessage) -> anyhow::Result<ResponseTypes> {
    ResponseTypes::try_deserialize(message.message)
}
 
// Note here that the only difference between handling a request and a response
// is that a request will have a sender_tag to parse.
//
// This is used for anonymous replies with SURBs.
pub fn handle_request(
    message: ReconstructedMessage,
) -> anyhow::Result<(RequestTypes, Option<AnonymousSenderTag>)> {
    let request = RequestTypes::try_deserialize(message.message)?;
    Ok((request, message.sender_tag))
}

The above helper functions are used as such by the client in tutorial example: it sends a message to the service (what the message is isn't important - just that your client has sent a message somewhere and you are awaiting a response), waits for a non_empty message, then handles it (then logs it - but you can do whatever you want, parse it, etc):

// Send serialised request to service via mixnet what is await-ed here is
// placing the message in the client's message queue, NOT the sending itself.
let _ = client
    .send_message(sp_address, message.serialize(), Default::default())
    .await;
 
// Await a non-empty message
let received = wait_for_non_empty_message(client).await?;
 
// Handle the response received (the non-empty message awaited above)
let sp_response = handle_response(received)?;
 
// Match JSON -> ResponseType
let res = match sp_response {
    crate::ResponseTypes::Balance(response) => {
        println!("{:#?}", response);
        response.balance
    }
};

Iterating over incoming messages

It is recommended to use nym_client.next().await over nym_client.wait_for_messages().await as the latter will return one message at a time which will probably be easier to deal with. See the parallel send and receive example for an example.

Remember to disconnect your client

You should always manually disconnect your client with client.disconnect().await as seen in the code examples. This is important as your client is writing to a local DB and dealing with SURB storage, so needs to gracefully shutdown.

Anonymous Replies Message Types