Made the serialization code cleaner, and fixed a bug where data was overwritten by the null pointer

serialization.c

@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 #include <stdint.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
+#include <string.h>
+#include <arpa/inet.h>
 #include "includes/serialization.h"
 
 /* Takes in float values, casts them to uint16_t and creates a Serial_Data struct */
@@ -13,20 +15,37 @@ Serial_Data Serial_create_data(float pad_x, float pad_y, float ball_x, float bal
 	return data;
 }
 
-/* Serializes a 'Data' struct into a byte array */
+/* Serializes a 'Data' struct into a byte array, converted to network-byte order */
 uint8_t* Serial_serialize(Serial_Data data) {
 	/* Create a pointer that can fit the entire struct */
-	uint8_t* serialized = malloc(sizeof(Serial_Data));
-	/* Store the data into the pointer, by using an incremented memory address for each successive store */
-	*serialized = data.pad_x;
-	*(serialized + sizeof(uint16_t)) = data.pad_y;
-	*(serialized + 2 * sizeof(uint16_t)) = data.ball_x;
-	*(serialized + 3 * sizeof(uint16_t)) = data.ball_y;
+	uint8_t* serialized = malloc(4 * sizeof(uint16_t) + 1);
+	uint8_t* pad_x_ptr;
+	uint8_t* pad_y_ptr;
+	uint8_t* ball_x_ptr;
+	uint8_t* ball_y_ptr;
+	memset(serialized, 0, 4 * sizeof(uint16_t) + 1); // Zero out the memory
+	pad_x_ptr = serialized;
+	pad_y_ptr = pad_x_ptr + sizeof(uint16_t);
+	ball_x_ptr = pad_y_ptr + sizeof(uint16_t);
+	ball_y_ptr = ball_x_ptr + sizeof(uint16_t);
+
+	*((uint16_t *)pad_x_ptr) = data.pad_x;
+	*((uint16_t *)pad_x_ptr) = htons(*((uint16_t *)pad_x_ptr));
+	
+	*((uint16_t *)pad_y_ptr) = data.pad_y;
+	*((uint16_t *)pad_y_ptr) = htons(*((uint16_t *)pad_y_ptr));
+	
+	*((uint16_t *)ball_x_ptr) = data.ball_x;
+	*((uint16_t *)ball_x_ptr) = htons(*((uint16_t *)ball_x_ptr));
+	
+	*((uint16_t *)ball_y_ptr) = data.ball_y;
+	*((uint16_t *)ball_y_ptr) = htons(*((uint16_t *)ball_y_ptr));
+	*(ball_y_ptr + sizeof(uint16_t)) = '\0';
 
 	return serialized;
 }
 
-/* Deserialize a byte array into a 'Data' struct */
+/* Deserialize a byte array into a 'Data' struct, converted to host byte order */
 Serial_Data Serial_deserialize(uint8_t* serialized) {
 	Serial_Data deserialized;
 	/* Use successive chunks of memory address to create pointers to the data */
@@ -37,10 +56,17 @@ Serial_Data Serial_deserialize(uint8_t* serialized) {
 
 	/* Dereference (and cast) the pointers, and store them into the struct */
 	deserialized.pad_x = *((uint16_t *)pad_x_ptr);
+	deserialized.pad_x = ntohs(deserialized.pad_x);
+	
 	deserialized.pad_y = *((uint16_t *)pad_y_ptr);
+	deserialized.pad_y = ntohs(deserialized.pad_y);
+	
 	deserialized.ball_x = *((uint16_t *)ball_x_ptr);
+	deserialized.ball_x = ntohs(deserialized.ball_x);
+		
 	deserialized.ball_y = *((uint16_t *)ball_y_ptr);
-	
+	deserialized.ball_y = ntohs(deserialized.ball_y);
+		
 	return deserialized;
 }