2.2 Message Syntax

The DSLR protocol defines a tag-based message format. Each tag contains the payload size, the payload, the child count, and the children's payloads.

A typical DSLR message consists of one tag with one child; that is, the Dispatcher Request or Response tag and payload followed one child (consisting of the tag and payload for the specific service request) with no children. Details of these tags and payloads are in the sections that follow. See section 4.2 for a typical message layout.

Note that the network byte order for all numeric data in all DSLR messages (both tags and payloads) is big-endian. The high-order byte is the first to hit the wire.