I'm developing a server-client application using Winsock in c++ and have a problem.
For getting the message from the client by the server I use the code below.
int result;
char buffer[200];
while (true)
{
result = recv(client, buffer, 200, NULL);
if (result > 0)
cout << "\n\tMessage from client: \n\n\t" << message << ";";
}
I send the message "Hello" from the client to the server. However the buffer is actually this:
HelloÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
What am I missing?
Since recv
might not receive as many bytes as you told it, you typically use a function
like this to receive specified number of bytes. Modified from here
int receiveall(int s, char *buf, int *len)
{
int total = 0; // how many bytes we've received
int bytesleft = *len; // how many we have left to receive
int n = -1;
while(total < *len) {
n = recv(s, buf+total, bytesleft, 0);
if (n <= 0) { break; }
total += n;
bytesleft -= n;
}
*len = total; // return number actually received here
return (n<=0)?-1:0; // return -1 on failure, 0 on success
}
It's up to you to null terminate the string if you receive string which is not null terminated.
The result tells you how many bytes were received. recv
doesn't add a terminator since, in general, network data is binary data which might not be usable as a C-style string.
You can add a terminator yourself, if you know the message won't contain the termination character:
buffer[result] = 0; // make sure the buffer is large enough
or make a string (or vector, or whatever) from it:
std::string message_str(message, result);
Note that what you receive might not be a single "message", especially if you're uses a stream protocol like TCP. It might contain more than one message, or just the start of one.
memset(&receive[0], 0, sizeof(receive));
To clear the buffer
You didn't initialize your buffer
char buffer[200] = {0};
while (true)
{
result = recv(client, buffer, 200, NULL);
if (result > 0)
cout << "\n\tMessage from client: \n\n\t" << message << ";";
memset(buffer, 0, 200);
}