There are various interfaces that are common across a number of SWANS layers and tie the system together. The most important interface of this kind is Message. It represents a packet transfered along the network stack and it must be timeless (or immutable). Components at various layers define their own message structures. Many of these instances recursively store messages within their payload, thus forming a message chain that encodes the hierachical header structure of the message. Other common elements include a node, node location, protocol number mapper and miscellaneous utilities.
| jist.swans.misc.* | ||
| interface | package | implementations |
| Message | jist.swans.misc | MessageBytes, MessageNest |
| jist.swans.mac | Mac802_11.RTS, .CTS, .ACK, .DATA, etc. | |
| jist.swans.net | NetIp.IpMessage | |
| jist.swans.route | RouteZrp.IARP, RouteDsr.RREQ, etc. | |
| jist.swans.trans | TransUdp.UdpMessage, TransTcp.TcpMessage, etc. | |