how to send an array of bytes over a TCP connection (java programming)

Question

Can somebody demonstrate how to send an array of bytes over a TCP connection from a sender program to a receiver program in Java.

byte[] myByteArray

(I'm new to Java programming, and can't seem to find an example of how to do this that shows both ends of the connection (sender and receiver.) If you know of an existing example, maybe you could post the link. (No need to reinvent the wheel.) P.S. This is NOT homework! :-)

Answer 1

Here is an example that streams 100 byte wav file frames at a time.

private Socket socket;

public void streamWav(byte[] myByteArray, int start, int len) throws IOException {

    Path path = Paths.get("path/to/file.wav");

    byte[] data = Files.readAllBytes(path);

    OutputStream out = socket.getOutputStream();
    DataOutputStream os = new DataOutputStream(out);

    os.writeInt(len);
    if (len > 0) {
        os.write(data, start, len);
    }
}

public void readWav() throws IOException {

    InputStream in = socket.getInputStream();

    int frameLength = 100; // use useful number of bytes

    int input;
    boolean active = true;

    while(active) {
        byte[] frame = new byte[frameLength];
        for(int i=0; i<frameLength; i++) {

            input = in.read();

            if(input < 0) {
                active = false;
                break;
            } else frame[i] = (byte) input;
        }

        // playWavPiece(frame);
        // streamed frame byte array is full
        // use it here ;-)
    }
}

Answer 2

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;

public class ByteSocketClient 
{
    public static void main(String[] args) throws UnknownHostException, IOException 
    {
        Socket s=new Socket("",6000);

        DataOutputStream dout=new DataOutputStream(new BufferedOutputStream(s.getOutputStream()));

        byte[] a = {(byte)0xC0,(byte)0xA8,(byte)0x01,(byte)0x02,(byte)0x53,(byte)0x4D,(byte)0x41,(byte)0x52,(byte)0x54};
        dout.write(a);
        dout.close();
        s.close();
    }

}

Answer 3

I would ask you to use ObjectOutputStream and ObjectInputStream. These send everything as an object and receive as the same.

ObjectOutputStream os = new ObjectOutputStream(socket.getOutputStream());
os.flush();
ObjectInputStream is = new ObjectInputStream(socket.getInputStream());
os.writeObject(byte_array_that_you_want_to_send);
byte[] temp = (byte[]) is.readObject();

Also remember first create the output stream, flush it and then go ahead with the input stream because if something left out in the stream the input stream wont be created.

Answer 4

The Oracle Socket Communications Tutorial would seem to be the appropriate launch point.

Note that it's going to extra trouble to turn characters into bytes. If you want to work at the byte level, just peel that off.

Answer 5

I'm guessing that the question is worded incorrectly. I found this when searching for an answer to why my use of InputStream and OutputStream seemed to be setting the entire array to 0 upon encountering a byte of value 0. Do these assume that the bytes contain valid ASCII and not binary. Since the question doesn't come right out and ask this, and nobody else seems to have caught it as a possibility, I guess I'll have to satisfy my quest elsewhere.

What I was trying to do was write a TransparentSocket class that can instantiate either a TCP (Socket/ServerSocket) or a UDP (DatagramSocket) to use the DatagramPacket transparently. It works for UDP, but not (yet) for TCP.

Follow-up: I seem to have verified that these streams are themselves useless for binary transfers, but that they can be passed to a more programmer-friendly instantiation, e.g.,

new DataOutputStream(socket.getOutputStream()).writeInt(5);

^ So much for that idea. It writes data in a "portable" way, i.e., probably ASCII, which is no help at all, especially when emulating software over which I have no control!

Answer 6

The InputStream and OutputStream classes in Java natively handle byte arrays. The one thing you may want to add is the length at the beginning of the message so that the receiver knows how many bytes to expect. I typically like to offer a method that allows controlling which bytes in the byte array to send, much like the standard API.

Something like this:

private Socket socket;

public void sendBytes(byte[] myByteArray) throws IOException {
    sendBytes(myByteArray, 0, myByteArray.length);
}

public void sendBytes(byte[] myByteArray, int start, int len) throws IOException {
    if (len < 0)
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Negative length not allowed");
    if (start < 0 || start >= myByteArray.length)
        throw new IndexOutOfBoundsException("Out of bounds: " + start);
    // Other checks if needed.

    // May be better to save the streams in the support class;
    // just like the socket variable.
    OutputStream out = socket.getOutputStream(); 
    DataOutputStream dos = new DataOutputStream(out);

    dos.writeInt(len);
    if (len > 0) {
        dos.write(myByteArray, start, len);
    }
}

EDIT: To add the receiving side:

public byte[] readBytes() throws IOException {
    // Again, probably better to store these objects references in the support class
    InputStream in = socket.getInputStream();
    DataInputStream dis = new DataInputStream(in);

    int len = dis.readInt();
    byte[] data = new byte[len];
    if (len > 0) {
        dis.readFully(data);
    }
    return data;
}

Answer 7

Just start with this example from the Really Big Index. Notice though, that it's designed to transmit and receive characters, not bytes. This isn't a big deal, though - you can just deal with the raw InputStream and OutputStream objects that the Socket class provides. See the API for more info about the different types of readers, writers and streams. Methods you'll be interested in are OutputStream.write(byte[]) and InputStream.read(byte[]).

Answer 8

What you need to use is the write method of an java.io.OutputStream, and the read method of an java.io.InputStream, both of which you can retrieve from the Socket you open.

Answer 9

This Sun Sockets tutorial should give you a good starting point