29 replies to this topic

[King Tokio]

I'm using SDL_net to create a simple server and client program in C++. I'm using TCP to send data from the client (sender) to the server (listener).

I know that TCP is a data stream protocol and that packets arrive at their destination complete and in order but with no indication of where one packet ends and another begins. I've been trying to work around the problem of getting "merged" or "split" packets on the server.

I'm using a function similar to the sendall() function that Beej uses in his guide, however my packets are still arriving split.

Here's my sending function:

int sendAll(TCPsocket socket, char *buff, unsigned short len)
{
	unsigned short total = 0;
	unsigned short bytesleft = len;
	int n;

	n = SDLNet_TCP_Send(socket, &len, sizeof(short));

	while (total < len)
	{
		n = SDLNet_TCP_Send(socket, buff, bytesleft);
		if (n == -1) { break; }
		total += n;
		bytesleft -= n;
	}

	return n == -1?-1:0;
}

And my receiving function

int recvAll(TCPsocket socket, char *buff)
{
	unsigned short total = 0;
	unsigned short len = 0;
	int n;

	n = SDLNet_TCP_Recv(socket, &len, sizeof(short));
	unsigned short bytesleft = len;

	while (total < len)
	{
		n = SDLNet_TCP_Recv(socket, buff, bytesleft);
		if (n == -1) { break; }
		total += n;
		bytesleft -= n;
	}

	return n == -1?-1:0;	// Return -1 on failure, 0 on success;
}

I first send/recv an unsigned short denoting the length of the message, and then I make repeated calls to send/recv until at least that many bytes has been received. I then print the output to the screen.

I'm unsure as to why this isn't working. If I were to send a character string containing "Hello World !", I get 3 seperate outputs, "Hello", "World" and "!".

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Or maybe a better (read: easier) way of doing it?

[imerso]

Not clear to me. Not working at all, or not working because the server is receiving 3 packets?

I don't know about SDL_net, but if "len" has less than 512 bytes I bet it'll be sent in one send() and received with one recv().

[King Tokio]

That's what I thought, and I've been wracking my brain for days trying to work out why my messages are being sent word by word. Then I just realised, it is because I am getting my messages using "cin >> msg".

I made a simple program (not related to networking) where I got user input using cin, and only the first word of the message was printed, so I'm guessing this is where I have gone wrong?

I tried changing every instance of "cin >> msg" in my program, to getline(cin, msg) but doing so gives me errors. Are there any other c++ input functions that are used to get a whole line of input?

EDIT: To clarify, it is not working because when i send a character string such as "The Quick Brown Fox", the server outputs:

Received: The
Received: Quick
Received: Brown
Received: Fox

When it ought to just be receiving "The Quick Brown Fox" as a single output.

[Reedbeta]

getline should work. What errors do you receive using that?

[TheNut]

c++ cin breaks on whitespace, so if you enter 3 words that counts as 3 inputs. To manage a single input line use:

char buffer[128];

std::cin.getline(buffer, sizeof(buffer));

You can adjust the size of the buffer as you need.

To manage multiple packets you should devise some sort of application level protocol. My protocol contains a 4 byte header on every message sent that identifies the length of the message. Once the message has been fully received, I deserialize the binary data into XML (typically) or some sort of object for application level processing. Any leftover data gets pushed over for the next message to download.

[King Tokio]

Reedbeta said:

getline should work. What errors do you receive using that?

I get an error because one of SDL_net's functions expects a pointer to a char as an argument (in this case, the argument is char msg[512]). Using getline(cin, msg) where msg is a pointer to a char won't work for me, and changing msg from a char* to a string doesn't bode well with my SDL_net function.

However, if TheNut's code works and I can use cin.getline() to input data into a character array, I should be able to finally get my code working!

Thanks for the replies, I'm gonna go attemp to fix it ;)

EDIT: It's working great ;) thanks very much for the help, I can't believe I've spent so long trying so solve a problem that was so simple!

[Reedbeta]

You can also make msg a string, use getline(), then call msg.c_str() to convert it to a char pointer to send to your SDL_net function. In fact, I would recommend doing it that way because then you don't have to worry about overflowing the fixed-size buffer in TheNut's code.

[King Tokio]

Thank you for the info Reedbeta. If I use a string and convert it to a char pointer using msg.c_str(), am I still able to enfore a maximum message length?

For instance, maximum message length is 512 and a client sends a string of length 520. I would like for the 8 trailing chars to be cut off.

[Reedbeta]

Well, if you really do want a fixed-size buffer, you could go ahead and use TheNut's version. (It's safe, in that it won't read more characters from the stream than the size of the buffer, but will leave any additional characters in the stream to be read the next time.) The string version will read a whole line, however long it happens to be. You can then certainly send only the first 512 characters if you like. Just ensure you clamp the number of bytes to a max of 512 for your send routine.

[King Tokio]

So assuming msg is a string, something like SDLNet_TCP_Send(socket, msg.c_str(), 512) would only send the first 512 characters and ignore the rest? (Without leaving them in the stream to be sent with the next call to Send()?)

If so then you're right, it would be better for me to use strings. Thanks!

[Reedbeta]

Close, but you should say min(512, msg.size()) rather than just 512. You don't want it to try to send 512 characters if the string is shorter than that, after all.

[King Tokio]

Thanks again, although now I am a little confused!
So you mean, the line should be SDLNet_TCP_Send(socket, msg.c_str(), min(512, msg.size()))?

EDIT: Should have Googled it first. I understand now that min() returns the lesser of it's two arguments. In this case either the size of msg, or 512 (whichever is smaller) ?

On the receiving end, I would use something similar to this? :

string msg;

SDLNet_TCP_Recv(socket, msg.c_str(), length);

[Reedbeta]

After you receive the length of the string, you should use the resize() method to ensure the string has the right number of characters allocated before you receive the string data itself. But yes, then something like that should work, although you may have to cast away the const-ness of the pointer returned from c_str().

[King Tokio]

Still a little confused :(

So something like this? :

string msg;
unsigned short len;

// Read first two bytes of data (containing length)
SDLNet_TCP_Recv(socket, len, sizeof(short);

msg.resize(len);

SDLNet_TCP_Recv(socket, msg.c_str(), len);

I've probably got it even more wrong now haha, sorry about all the questions.

Also I'm unsure how to "cast away const-ness", in fact I didn't even know you could.

EDIT: Again, I really ought to Google before I post. I now know how I can cast away const-ness, but in this situation I am not sure as to why I would need to? Am I not just able to print the received msg.c_str() to the screen by using cout << msg; ?

[Reedbeta]

Yes, that code looks right. Casting away constness has nothing to do with printing the message on the screen. I simply meant that c_str() returns a const char *, while SDLNet_TCP_Recv takes a void * (not const). So, to get this to compile you would need to cast away the constness when you pass the pointer returned from c_str() to SDLNet_TCP_Recv. This should be reasonably safe although you're not really supposed to do it (which is why c_str() returns a pointer to const in the first place).

[King Tokio]

So as it is I might get a compiler error?
I am unable to test it right now, but would using const_cast within that single function call work? eg:

SDLNet_TCP_Recv(socket, const_cast<char *>(msg.c_str()), len);

Thanks again for the help and sorry for so many questions (and my general lack of understanding!)

[Reedbeta]

Yes, the const_cast within the function call is what I had in mind.

[King Tokio]

Great! Thanks for all your help Reedbeta. Glad I (finally) got that cleared up :D

Might actually be able to rewrite my code to compile without errors now!

[rouncer]

Another happy customer :)

[King Tokio]

For completeness' sake I thought I'd post my (now working) client and server code. Thanks again for helping me to get this work!

Server:

/*

	A simple server program

	by Luke Jennings 2009

*/


/********************/


/* Link additional libraries */

#pragma comment(lib, "sdl.lib")

#pragma comment(lib, "sdlmain.lib")

#pragma comment(lib, "sdl_net.lib")


/* Defines */

#define PORT 1234	// The port we are connecting to

#define BUFFER 512	// Size of message buffer

#define MAXSOCKET 10	// Max number of clients to connect


/* Standard headers */

#include <cstdlib>

#include <iostream>

#include <string>


/* SDL headers */

#include "sdl.h"

#include "sdl_net.h"


using namespace std;


/********************/


/** MAIN **/


int main(int argc, char **argv)

{

	// Variables

	const char *host;	// Where we store the host name

		

	IPaddress ipaddress;	// The IP we will connect to

	TCPsocket tcpsock;	// The server socket

	TCPsocket new_tcpsock;	// A temp socket

	

	TCPsocket client[MAXSOCKET];	// An array of sockets for the clients

	

	SDLNet_SocketSet socketset = NULL;	// A set of sockets

	

	int i = 0, j = 0, result = 0;

	unsigned short len = 0;

	string msg;

	

	/********************/

	

	// Initialize SDL & SDL_net

	if (SDL_Init(0) == -1)

	{

		cout << "SDL_Init: " << SDL_GetError() << "\n";

		exit(1);

	}

	if (SDLNet_Init() == -1)

	{

		cout << "SDLNet_Init: " << SDLNet_GetError() << "\n";

		exit(2);

	}

	

	// Create the socket set

	socketset = SDLNet_AllocSocketSet(MAXSOCKET);

	if (socketset == NULL)

	{

		cout << "SDLNet_AllocSocketSet: " << SDLNet_GetError() << "\n";

		exit(3);

	}

	else

	{

		cout << "Max number of clients: " << MAXSOCKET << "\n";

	}

	

	// Initialize client sockets

	for (i = 0; i < MAXSOCKET; i++)

	{

		client[i] = NULL;

	}

	

	// Try to resolve the host

	if (SDLNet_ResolveHost(&ipaddress, NULL, PORT) == -1)

	{

		cout << "SDLNet_ResolveHost: " << SDLNet_GetError() << "\nContinuing...\n";

	}

	

	// Try to resolve the IP

	if ((host = SDLNet_ResolveIP(&ipaddress)) == NULL)

	{

		cout << "SDLNet_ResolveIP: " << SDLNet_GetError() << "\nContinuing...\n";

	}

	else

	{

		cout << "Local name: " << host << "\n";

	}

	

	// State which port we are listening on

	cout << "Port: " << PORT << "\n";

	

	// Try to open the server socket

	tcpsock = SDLNet_TCP_Open(&ipaddress);

	if (!tcpsock)

	{

		cout << "SDLNet_TCP_Open: " << SDLNet_GetError() << "\n";

		exit(4);

	}

	

	// Add the server to the socket set

	SDLNet_TCP_AddSocket(socketset, tcpsock);

	

	cout << "Awaiting clients...\n";

	

	/********************/

		

	/** MAIN LOOP **/

	

	while (1)

	{

		// Check for activity on the socket set

		SDLNet_CheckSockets(socketset, 0);

		

		// If there is activity

		if (SDLNet_SocketReady(tcpsock))

		{

			// Accept the connection, add it to our array and the socket set

			cout << "Client connected.\n";

			

			new_tcpsock = SDLNet_TCP_Accept(tcpsock);

			client[j] = new_tcpsock;

			

			SDLNet_TCP_AddSocket(socketset, client[j]);

			j++;

		}

		

		// Check client sockets for activity

		for (i = 0; i < MAXSOCKET; i++)

		{

			if (SDLNet_SocketReady(client[i]))

			{

				// There is an incoming message

				result = SDLNet_TCP_Recv(client[i], const_cast<char *>(msg.c_str()), BUFFER);

				

				if (result < 0)

				{

					cout << "Client " << i << " disconnected.\n";

					client[i] = NULL;

				}

				else

				{

					cout << "Received: " << msg.c_str() << "\n";

				}

			}

		}

	}

	

	/********************/

		

	// Quit SDL & SDL_net

	SDLNet_Quit();

	SDL_Quit();

		

	return 0;

}

Client:

/*

	A simple client program

	by Luke Jennings 2009

*/


/********************/


/* Link additional libraries */

#pragma comment(lib, "sdl.lib")

#pragma comment(lib, "sdlmain.lib")

#pragma comment(lib, "sdl_net.lib")


/* Defines */

#define PORT 1234	// The port we are connecting to

#define BUFFER 512	// Size of message buffer


/* Standard headers */

#include <cstdlib>

#include <iostream>

#include <string>


/* SDL headers */

#include "sdl.h"

#include "sdl_net.h"


using namespace std;


/********************/


/** MAIN **/


int main(int argc, char **argv)

{

	// Variables

	const char *host;	// Where we store the host name

	

	IPaddress ipaddress;	// The IP we will connect to

	TCPsocket tcpsock;	// The socket to use

	

	string servername;	// The server name

	

	int result = 0;

	unsigned short len = 0;

	string msg;

	

	/********************/

	

	// Initialize SDL & SDL_net

	if (SDL_Init(0) == -1)

	{

		cout << "SDL_Init: " << SDL_GetError() << "\n";

		exit(1);

	}

	if (SDLNet_Init() == -1)

	{

		cout << "SDLNet_Init: " << SDLNet_GetError() << "\n";

		exit(2);

	}

	

	// Get the server name

	cout << "Server Name: ";

	getline(cin, servername);

	cout << "Port: " << PORT << "\n";

	

	// Try to resolve the host

	if (SDLNet_ResolveHost(&ipaddress, servername.c_str(), PORT) == -1)

	{

		cout << "SDLNet_ResolveHost: " << SDLNet_GetError() << "\nContinuing...\n";

	}

	

	// Try to resolve the IP

	if ((host = SDLNet_ResolveIP(&ipaddress)) == NULL)

	{

		cout << "SDLNet_ResolveIP: " << SDLNet_GetError() << "\nContinuing...\n";

	}

	else

	{

		cout << "Connected to host: " << host << "\n";

	}

	

	// Try to open the socket

	tcpsock = SDLNet_TCP_Open(&ipaddress);

	if (!tcpsock)

	{

		cout << "SDLNet_TCP_Open: " << SDLNet_GetError() << "\n";

		exit(3);

	}

	

	/********************/

	

	/** MAIN LOOP **/

	

	while (1)

	{

		// Get user input

		cout << "Send: ";

		getline(cin, msg);

		

		// Calculate the length and send it

		len = (int)(strlen(msg.c_str()));

		result = SDLNet_TCP_Send(tcpsock, msg.c_str(), min(BUFFER, (int)len));

		

		cout << "Sent: (" << len << ") " << msg << "\n";

	}

	

	/********************/

	

	// Quit SDL & SDL_net

	SDLNet_Quit();

	SDL_Quit();

	

	return 0;

}

The only issue I have (which isn't too much of a problem), is that after receiving data into msg.c_str(), I can only output it as a character array and not as a string. This may become a problem when I try to fix the code that sends messages back to clients. Any ideas?