Pre-release protocol

This page documents the changes from the last stable Minecraft release (currently 1.4.2) to the current pre-release (or weekly release).

New Packets

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Changed Packets

Item Data (0x83)

Server to Client

Sent to specify complex data on an item; currently used only for maps.

Packet ID	Field Name	Field Type	Example	Notes
0x83	Item Type	short	358	Type of item being modified
	Item ID	short	0	The ID (damage value) of the item being modified
	Text length	short	35	Length of following byte array
	Text	byte array	{0,0,0,20,20,20,20,20}	ASCII text.
Total Size:	7 bytes + Text length

Maps If the first byte of the text is 0, the next two bytes are X start and Y start and the rest of the bytes are the colors in that column.

If the first byte of the text is 1, the rest of the bytes are in groups of three: (data, x, y). The lower half of the data is the type (always 0 under vanilla) and the upper half is the direction.

Changed Data Types

Entity Metadata has an additional field for Slot data types. It now has a short (-1) at the end if there is no further data, or that short is the length of the following NBT array, presumably gzipped NBT data.

Removed Packets

-None-

Protocol History

1.4.4 Pre-release

Protocol version is now 49. Packet 0x83 updated.

1.4.3 Pre-release

Protocol version is now 48. Entity metadata updated.