Read X-Plane UDP packets with Ruby

main.rb

require 'rubygems'
require 'socket'

class Xplane
  XP_SENDING_PORT = 49001 # X-Plane sends packets on this port
  
  # These define the structure of the UDP packet.
  XP_PACKET_HEADER = 'CCCCC'
  XP_PACKET_DATA = 'lffffffff'
  
  def initialize  
    @s = UDPSocket.new
    @s.bind('',49001)
  end 
  
  def getPacket(data_fields)
      d = @s.recv(XP_PACKET_HEADER.length + 36*data_fields)
      data_with_header = d.unpack(XP_PACKET_HEADER + XP_PACKET_DATA*data_fields)
      data = data_with_header[ XP_PACKET_HEADER.length .. (XP_PACKET_HEADER.length + data_fields*XP_PACKET_DATA.length) ]
      # At this point "data" is an array of the packet values, but lets go for a hash...
      
      packet_hash = {}
      data.each_slice(XP_PACKET_DATA.length).to_a.each do |packet|
        packet_hash[packet[0]] = packet[1 .. XP_PACKET_DATA.length - 1]
      end
      
      return packet_hash
  end
end

# Example use..
x = Xplane.new
p  x.getPacket(3)