iOS Network Framework for UDP
iOS 12 includes an awesome Network framework, say goodbye to some of your favorite third party libraries! I copied the docs for you from Apple:
Network: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/network
Create network connections to send and receive data using transport and security protocols.
Available on these SDKs: iOS 12.0+, macOS 10.14+, Mac Catalyst 13.0+, tvOS 12.0+, watchOS 6.0+
Overview
Use this framework when you need direct access to protocols like TLS, TCP, and UDP for your custom application protocols. Continue to use
URLSession, which is built upon this framework, for loading HTTP- and URL-based resources.
Using NWConnection with UDP
Most people use TCP, but I wanted to connect to a device that uses UDP to send messages back and forth. UDP doesn’t rely on connection handshakes or anything, you just send messages and you must know that sometimes packets get lost and account for that.
All you need to do is make a connection, then send and receive.
let connection = NWConnection(host: address, port: port, using: .udp)
connection.start(queue: .global())
It doesn’t matter if the state changes because UDP is stateless. You send messages when you want, and the receiver can respond if they get the message. Apple’s Network framework works a bit differently than other frameworks so you can send and receive in the same function to achieve what you may need a loop for in other frameworks.
To make a UDP Listener you can read my other article.
Here’s the full code for a basic send and receive using UDP!
What if you want to listen to a UDP data stream?
Well here is another article I wrote about how to make a Combine enabled UDP Listener using Apple’s Network Framework
