Lego EV3 - sending direct commands over RFCOMM Channel (Objective-C, Xcode)

Question

I successfully open RFCOMM Channel to Lego EV3 brick with code:

IOBluetoothDevice *device = [IOBluetoothDevice deviceWithAddressString:@"xxxxxxxxxxxx"];
IOBluetoothRFCOMMChannel *rfCommChannel;
IOBluetoothSDPUUID *sppServiceUUID = [IOBluetoothSDPUUID uuid16:kBluetoothSDPUUID16ServiceClassSerialPort];

IOBluetoothSDPServiceRecord *sppServiceRecord = [device getServiceRecordForUUID:sppServiceUUID];

if ( sppServiceRecord == nil )
{
    NSLog( @"Error - no spp service in selected device." );
}

UInt8   rfcommChannelID;
if ( [sppServiceRecord getRFCOMMChannelID:&rfcommChannelID] != kIOReturnSuccess )
{
    NSLog( @"Error - no spp service in selected device." );
}

if ( ( [device openRFCOMMChannelAsync:&rfCommChannel withChannelID:rfcommChannelID delegate:d] != kIOReturnSuccess ) && ( rfCommChannel != nil ) )
{
    NSLog( @"Error - open sequence failed." );
}

Now I wish to send direct command:

unsigned char play_tone[] = {0x0F,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x80,0x00,0x00,0x94,0x01,0x81,0x02,0x82,0xE8,0x03,0x82,0xE8,0x03};

over RFCOMM Channel using class IOBluetoothRFCOMMChannel method:

- (IOReturn)writeSync:(void *)data length:(UInt16)length

I tried to do send it using different ways but none of them worked. How should I do it properly?

Answer 1

I have found solution. I create category NSString+NSStringHexToByte:

NSString+NSStringHexToBytes.h

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface NSString (NSStringHexToBytes)
+ (NSData *)dataWithString:(NSString *)string;
@end

NSString+NSStringHexToBytes.m

#import "NSString+NSStringHexToBytes.h"

@implementation NSString (NSStringHexToBytes)

+ (NSData *)dataWithString:(NSString *)string
{
    string = [string stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"0x" withString:@""];

    NSCharacterSet *notAllowedCharacters = [[NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:@"abcdefABCDEF1234567890"] invertedSet];
    string = [[string componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:notAllowedCharacters] componentsJoinedByString:@""];

    const char *cString = [string cStringUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];
    const char *idx = cString;
    unsigned char result[[string length] / 2];
    size_t count = 0;

    for(count = 0; count < sizeof(result)/sizeof(result[0]); count++)
    {
        sscanf(idx, "%2hhx", &result[count]);
        idx += 2 * sizeof(char);
    }

    return [[NSData alloc] initWithBytes:result length:sizeof(result)];
}

and now:

NSString* playTone= @"0f0000008000009401810282e80382e803";
NSData* data = [NSString dataWithString:playTone];
[self sendMessage:data toChannel:rfcommChannel];

where sendMessage is:

-(void)sendMessage:(NSData*)data toChannel:(IOBluetoothRFCOMMChannel*)rfcommChannel
{
    [rfcommChannel writeSync:(void*)data.bytes length:data.length];
}