libdatachannel is a standalone implementation of WebRTC DataChannels in C++17 with C bindings. It enables direct connectivity between native applications and web browsers without the pain of importing the entire WebRTC stack. Its API is modelled as a simplified version of the JavaScript WebRTC API, in order to ease the design of cross-environment applications.

This projet is originally inspired by librtcdcpp, however it is a complete rewrite from scratch, because the messy architecture of librtcdcpp made solving its implementation issues difficult.

Licensed under LGPLv2, see LICENSE.

Compatibility

This implementation has been tested to be compatible with Firefox and Chromium. It supports IPv6 and Multicast DNS candidates resolution provided the operating system also supports it.

Dependencies

libnice: https://github.com/libnice/libnice
GnuTLS: https://www.gnutls.org/

Submodules:

usrsctp: https://github.com/sctplab/usrsctp

Building

$ git submodule update --init --recursive
$ make

Example

In the following example, note the callbacks are called in another thread.

Signal a PeerConnection

#include "rtc/rtc.hpp"

rtc::Configuration config;
config.iceServers.emplace_back("mystunserver.org:3478");

auto pc = make_shared<rtc::PeerConnection>(config);

pc->onLocalDescription([](const rtc::Description &sdp) {
    // Send the SDP to the remote peer
    MY_SEND_DESCRIPTION_TO_REMOTE(string(sdp));
});

pc->onLocalCandidate([](const rtc::Candidate &candidate) {
    MY_SEND_CANDIDATE_TO_REMOTE(candidate.candidate(), candidate.mid());
});

MY_ON_RECV_DESCRIPTION_FROM_REMOTE([pc](string sdp) {
    pc->setRemoteDescription(rtc::Description(sdp));
});

MY_ON_RECV_CANDIDATE_FROM_REMOTE([pc](string candidate, string mid) {
    pc->addRemoteCandidate(rtc::Candidate(candidate, mid));
});

Observe the PeerConnection state

pc->onStateChanged([](PeerConnection::State state) {
    cout << "State: " << state << endl;
});

pc->onGatheringStateChanged([](PeerConnection::GatheringState state) {
    cout << "Gathering state: " << state << endl;
});

Create a DataChannel

auto dc = pc->createDataChannel("test");
dc->onOpen([]() {
    cout << "Open" << endl;
});
dc->onMessage([](const variant<binary, string> &message) {
    if (holds_alternative<string>(message)) {
        cout << "Received: " << get<string>(message) << endl;
    }
});

Receive a DataChannel

shared_ptr<rtc::DataChannel> dc;
pc->onDataChannel([&dc](shared_ptr<rtc::DataChannel> incoming) {
    dc = incoming;
    dc->send("Hello world!");
});

See test/main.cpp for a complete local connection example.