I've recently been writing a tutorial on storing and reading data on the device in MoSync.  For part of the tutorial, I wanted to use some classes which I'd already written which allow you serial access to your data, and are an extension to the included DataHandler class.

However, they felt out of place in the tutorial as they aren't included in the standard SDK, and could have been confusing to new users, but I do feel that they are worth sharing.  I use them a lot for serialising data to and from storage.  I'm sure that someone is going to say that they are not as efficient as DataHandler, but this is the old 'runtime vs design-time' argument.

There are two classes which should feel familiar to Java and C# developers - StreamReader and StreamWriter.  These are not as flexible as their Java and C# counterparts - they only work with device stores and not connections (yet, that is an idea though!), but it does take a lot of the management pain away.  They will automatically write out p-strings, so you don't have to for instance.

Even with DataHandler, if you're writing a string out you need some code which might look like

DataHandler* handler = new DataHandler(myData);

handler->write(username.length(), 4);
handler->write(username.c_str(), username.length());
handler->write(password.length(), 4);
handler->write(password.c_str(), password.length());

You have to ask DataHandler to write the length first, and then the data.  With StreamWriter, you can just pass it the string.

StreamWriter sw;
sw.setSource(dsdata); //The MAHandle to the store
sw.WriteString("Sam is ace");

It can handle a wide variety of data formats, bytes, shorts, uints et cetera, and when I use it I know that I've got consistency between how I read and write data.  Anyway, some code.

StreamReader.h

#ifndef _STREAMREADER_H_
#define _STREAMREADER_H_

#include <ma.h>
#include <maTime.h>

class StreamReader
{
	public:
		StreamReader(MAHandle h);
		StreamReader();
		~StreamReader();
		
		byte ReadByte();
		short ReadInt16();
		ushort ReadUInt16();
		int ReadInt32();
		uint ReadUInt32();
		long ReadInt64();
		ulong ReadUInt64();
		time_t ReadDateTime();
		double ReadDouble();
		void ReadImage(MAHandle h);
		char* ReadChars(int count);
		char* ReadString();
		char* ReadShortString();
		
		int getPosition();
		void setPosition(int pos);

		void setSource(MAHandle h);

	private:
		MAHandle source;
		int position;
};

#endif

StreamReader.cpp

#include "StreamReader.h"
#include <conprint.h>

StreamReader::StreamReader()
{}

StreamReader::StreamReader(MAHandle h)
{
	position = 0;
	source = h;
}

StreamReader::~StreamReader()
{
}

byte StreamReader::ReadByte()
{
	byte b;
	maReadData(source, &b, position, 1);
	position += 1;

	return b;
}

short StreamReader::ReadInt16()
{
	short s;
	maReadData(source, &s, position, 2);
	position += 2;

	return s;
}

ushort StreamReader::ReadUInt16()
{
	ushort us;
	maReadData(source, &us, position, 2);
	position += 2;

	return us;
}

int StreamReader::ReadInt32()
{
	int i;
	maReadData(source, &i, position, 4);
	position += 4;

	return i;
}

uint StreamReader::ReadUInt32()
{
	uint ui;
	maReadData(source, &ui, position, 4);
	position += 4;

	return ui;
}

long StreamReader::ReadInt64()
{
	long l;
	maReadData(source, &l, position, 8);
	position += 8;

	return l;
}

ulong StreamReader::ReadUInt64()
{
	ulong ul;
	maReadData(source, &ul, position, 8);
	position += 8;

	return ul;
}

time_t StreamReader::ReadDateTime()
{
	time_t t;
	uint u;
	maReadData(source, &u, position, 4);
	t = (time_t)u;
	position += 4;

	return t;
}

double StreamReader::ReadDouble()
{
	double d;
	maReadData(source, &d, position, 8);
	position += 8;

	return d;
}

char* StreamReader::ReadChars(int count)
{
	char* c = new char[count];
	maReadData(source, c, position, count);
	position += count;

	return c;
}

char* StreamReader::ReadString()
{
	uint strlen;
	maReadData(source, &strlen, position, 4);
	////lprintfln("String length is %d", strlen);
	position += 4;

	char* tempString = new char[strlen + 1];
	maReadData(source, tempString, position, strlen);
	position += strlen;
	tempString[strlen] = 0;
	////lprintfln("String is: '%s'", tempString);
	return tempString;
}

char* StreamReader::ReadShortString()
{
	////lprintfln("Reading string from position:%d", position);
	ushort strlen;
	maReadData(source, &strlen, position, 2);
	////lprintfln("String length is %d", strlen);
	position += 2;

	char* tempString = new char[strlen + 1];
	maReadData(source, tempString, position, strlen);
	position += strlen;
	tempString[strlen] = 0;
	////lprintfln("String is: '%s'", tempString);
	return tempString;

}

void StreamReader::ReadImage(MAHandle h)
{
	uint imageLength = ReadUInt32();
	
	maCreateImageFromData(h, source, position, imageLength);
	position += imageLength;
}

int StreamReader::getPosition()
{
	return position;	
}

void StreamReader::setPosition(int pos)
{
	position = pos;
}

void StreamReader::setSource(MAHandle h)
{
  position = 0;
  source = h;
}

StreamWriter.h

/*
 * StreamWriter.h
 *
 *  Created on: 10 Feb 2010
 *      Author: sjp
 */

#ifndef STREAMWRITER_H_
#define STREAMWRITER_H_
#include <ma.h>
#include <maTime.h>
#include <MAUtil/String.h>
using namespace MAUtil;

class StreamWriter
{
    public:
        StreamWriter(MAHandle h);
        StreamWriter();
        ~StreamWriter();

        void WriteByte(byte b);
        void WriteInt16(short s);
        void WriteUInt16(ushort s);
        void WriteInt32(int i);
        void WriteUInt32(uint i);
        void WriteInt64(long l);
        void WriteUInt64(ulong u);
        void WriteDateTime(time_t t);
        void WriteDouble(double d);
        void WriteBytes(byte* bytes, int count);
        void WriteChars(char* chars);
        void WriteString(String& s);
        void WriteShortString(String& s);

        int getPosition();
        void setPosition(int pos);

        void setSource(MAHandle h);

    private:
        MAHandle source;
        int position;
        void write(void* d, int len);
};

#endif /* STREAMWRITER_H_ */

StreamWriter.cpp

/*
 * StreamWriter.cpp
 *
 *  Created on: 10 Feb 2010
 *      Author: sjp
 */
#include "StreamWriter.h"
#include <mastring.h>

StreamWriter::StreamWriter(MAHandle h)
{
  position = 0;
  source = h;
}

StreamWriter::StreamWriter()
{}

StreamWriter::~StreamWriter()
{}

void StreamWriter::WriteByte(byte b)
{
  write(&b, 1);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteInt16(short s)
{
  write(&s, 2);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteUInt16(ushort s)
{
  write(&s, 2);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteInt32(int i)
{
  write(&i, 4);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteUInt32(uint i)
{
  write(&i, 4);
}
void StreamWriter::WriteInt64(long l)
{
  write(&l, 8);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteUInt64(ulong u)
{
  write(&u, 8);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteDateTime(time_t t)
{
  write(&t, 4);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteDouble(double d)
{
  write(&d, 8);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteBytes(byte* bytes, int count)
{
  write(&count, 4);
  write(bytes, count);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteChars(char* chars)
{
  uint len = (uint)strlen(chars);
  write(&len, 4);
  write(chars, len);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteString(String& s)
{
  uint len = (uint)s.length();
  write(&len, 4);
  write(s.pointer(), len);
}

void StreamWriter::WriteShortString(String& s)
{
  ushort len = (ushort)s.length();
  write(&len, 2);
  write(s.pointer(), len);
}

int StreamWriter::getPosition()
{
  return position;
}

void StreamWriter::setPosition(int pos)
{
  position = pos;
}

void StreamWriter::setSource(MAHandle h)
{
  source = h;
  position = 0;
}

void StreamWriter::write(void* d, int len)
{
  if(len > 0)
  {
    //LOG("Writing data %s at position %d", d, position);
    maWriteData(source, d, position, len);
    position += len;
  }
}