gcoap Status

gcoap is a native implementation of CoAP for RIOT. It uses nanocoap for base functionality.

gcoap runs in its own thread. Client messages are processed asynchronously: a response is received via a callback from the gcoap thread. The gcoap thread also acts as a CoAP server that executes callbacks for application defined resources.

Feature Status

Feature	Description
Confirmable message type	Supports piggybacked ACKs; see #7192 for details and roadmap
Observe extension	Implemented server for non-confirmable message type; see #7548 for confirmable message type
Generic Option support	Allows the user to add options manually using a new nanocoap API. In progress in #9156. See API Options for details.
Block extension	Not implemented, but should be able to reuse/build-on nanocoap implementation

Learning More

See the online API documentation for gcoap itself, as well as generic CoAP definitions. Also see a feature comparison with nanocoap.

Examples

App	Description
examples/gcoap	Generic command line message client, also server
examples/rdcli_simple	Resource directory client
examples/rdcli	Full resource directory client
applications: coap-chat	Command line chat demo
kb2ma: data collection	Uses Observe extension to push data read via SAUL API to a server

Open PRs

Feature	Description
Generic Option support #9156	In final review
Context parameter for request #9857	Awaiting response to fixups

See all open 'gcoap' PRs and Issues. See all CoAP-tagged PRs and Issues.

Roadmap

See #9309 for combined gcoap and nanocoap roadmap. Below are other features we have in mind.

• #9000 increased gcoap stack size. A significant source of the problem was the size of the coap_pkt_t struct for gcoap, and #9156 reduces that struct size. Once that PR is complete, create a PR to reset stack size.
• #9156 allows addition of any CoAP option. However, gcoap_req_init() always adds a Uri-Path option, which makes it impossible to add an option with a lower option number. Allow gcoap_req_init() to accept a NULL path. (Also update the function doc for the code to specify COAP_METHOD_XXX.)
• With #9156, gcoap uses the same mechanism as nanocoap for options. So, move the implementation of gcoap_add_qstring() to a new function coap_add_qstring() in nanocoap.
• Add memory tuning section to module documentation. gcoap includes a number of compile-time macros that affect memory use.
• #9310 added behavior to the client to not wait for a response to a non-confirmable request when the user does not specify a response handler. Continue this work with client and server support for RFC 7967, which specifies a No-Response option to ask the server not to send a response to certain requests.
• Add DTLS support. See branch and discussion in #9450.

Milestones

Release	Description
2018.01	Request retries for piggybacked ACK response (#7337)
2017.07	Server side of the Observe protocol (#6469)
2017.01	Reimplement networking code to use sock rather than GNRC (#6117)
2016.10	GNRC-based gcoap (#5598)