Example App

function export($addr, $port, $str) {

    // All queries must begin with a question mark (ie "?players")
    if($str{0} != '?') $str = ('?' . $str);

    /* --- Prepare a packet to send to the server (based on a reverse-engineered packet structure) --- */
    $querysize = pack('n', strlen($str) + 6);

    $query = "\x00\x83" . pack('n', strlen($str) + 6) . "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00" . $str . "\x00";

    /* --- Create a socket and connect it to the server --- */
    $server = socket_create(AF_INET,SOCK_STREAM,SOL_TCP) or die('Unable to create export socket.');
    if(!socket_connect($server,$addr,$port)) {
        return "ERROR";
    }


    /* --- Send bytes to the server. Loop until all bytes have been sent --- */
    $bytestosend = strlen($query);
    $bytessent = 0;
    while ($bytessent < $bytestosend) {
        //echo $bytessent.'<br>';
        $result = socket_write($server,substr($query,$bytessent),$bytestosend-$bytessent);
        //echo 'Sent '.$result.' bytes<br>';
        if ($result===FALSE) die(socket_strerror(socket_last_error()));
        $bytessent += $result;
    }

    /* --- Idle for a while until recieved bytes from game server --- */
    $result = socket_read($server, 10000, PHP_BINARY_READ);
    socket_close($server); // we don't need this anymore

    if($result != "") {
        if($result{0} == "\x00" || $result{1} == "\x83") { // make sure it's the right packet format

            // Actually begin reading the output:
            $sizebytes = unpack('n', $result{2} . $result{3}); // array size of the type identifier and content
            $size = $sizebytes[1] - 1; // size of the string/floating-point (minus the size of the identifier byte)

            if($result{4} == "\x2a") { // 4-byte big-endian floating-point
                $unpackint = unpack('f', $result{5} . $result{6} . $result{7} . $result{8}); // 4 possible bytes: add them up together, unpack them as a floating-point
                return $unpackint[1];
            }
            else if($result{4} == "\x06") { // ASCII string
                $unpackstr = ""; // result string
                $index = 5; // string index

                while($size > 0) { // loop through the entire ASCII string
                    $size--;
                    $unpackstr = $unpackstr . $result{$index}; // add the string position to return string
                    $index++;
                }
                return $unpackstr;
            }
        }
    }
}