Code structure

Table of contents:

Overview

Roc Toolkit consists of the following high-level components:

  • Internal modules

    Internal C++ libraries, not part of public API. Basic building blocks for library and tools. See Doxygen documentation for details.

  • C library

    Public C API (libroc) for C and C++ applications. See API page.

  • Command-line tools

    Command-line tools for developers and advanced users. See Command-line tools page.

Besides toolkit, Roc Streaming project provides some software on top of it:

  • Language bindings

    Library bindings for other programming languages. See Bindings page.

  • Sound server modules

    Modules for OS-specific sound servers, like PulseAudio and PipeWire. See Sound server modules page.

  • Applications

    Desktop and mobile apps for end-users. See Applications page.

Overview

Modules

Essentially, a module is just a C++ library providing a set of related classes. Every module has its own namespace, include path, and a set of unit tests. Modules may be built separately.

See Doxygen documentation for details.

Modules can be grouped into several layers, as shown on the diagram above:

  • network I/O layer (roc_netio)
  • processing layer (roc_pipeline), with two sub-layers:
  • packet processing sub-layer (roc_packet, roc_rtp, roc_rtcp, roc_fec, and others)
  • frame processing sub-layer (roc_audio)
  • sound I/O layer (roc_sndio)
  • control layer (roc_ctl)
  • peer layer (roc_peer)

On receiver media flows from network I/O layer, through processing layer, to sound I/O layer. Accordingly, on sender media flows from sound I/O layer, through processing layer, to network I/O layer. On both receiver and sender, there is also control layer that handles various supportive tasks. Finally, peer layer is a top-level layer which glues everything together.

Here is the full list of available modules:

module description
roc_core General-purpose building blocks (containers, memory management, multithreading, etc)
roc_address Network URIs and addresses
roc_packet Network packets and packet processing
roc_rtp RTP support
roc_rtcp RTCP support
roc_fec FEC support
roc_sdp SDP support
roc_audio Audio frames and audio processing
roc_pipeline Pipeline loop that arranges packet and frame processors into a chain
roc_ctl Control loop that handles signaling protocols and background tasks
roc_netio Network I/O loop
roc_sndio Sound I/O loop
roc_peer Top-level module that glues everything together

Targets

Roc supports multiple platforms and compilers. The major part of the source code is platform-independent. However, there are also parts that depend on specific platform features or optional third-party libraries.

Such platform-dependent code is isolated inside “target” directories. Every target directory corresponds to platform or feature enabled at compile time. When SCons builds the project, it determines target directories to use, depending on the target platform, available third-party libraries, and command-line options.

Every module can have its own target directories. Headers from enabled target directories are added to the include path, and source files from enabled target directories are added to the build.

Currently supported targets are:

target description
target_pc Enabled for PC (like server, desktop, laptop)
target_posix Enabled for a POSIX OS
target_posix_ext Enabled for a POSIX OS with POSIX extensions
target_posix_pc Enabled for a POSIX OS on PC
target_gnu Enabled for GNU-like libc and compiler
target_darwin Enabled for macOS
target_android Enabled for Android
target_c11 Enabled for C11 compilers
target_libunwind Enabled if libunwind is available
target_libatomic_ops Enabled if libatomic_ops is available
target_libuv Enabled if libuv is available
target_openfec Enabled if OpenFEC is available
target_speexdsp Enabled if SpeexDSP is available
target_sox Enabled if SoX is available
target_pulseaudio Enabled if PulseAudio is available
target_nobacktrace Enabled if no backtrace API is available
target_nodemangle Enabled if no demangling API is available

Example directory structure employing targets:

roc_core
├── target_posix
│   └── roc_core
│       ├── ...
│       ├── mutex.cpp
│       └── mutex.h
├── target_posix_ext
│   └── roc_core
│       ├── ...
│       ├── time.cpp
│       └── time.h
├── target_darwin
│   └── roc_core
│       ├── ...
│       ├── time.cpp
│       └── time.h
├── ...
├── array.h
└── list.h