File transfer over sockets

I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction with my project:

I'm to write a simple client and server programs that will use sockets. The client will be able to sent a GET <file name> command to the server and the server will send back a file (which does not have to be ASCII characters).

I have basic knowledge of sockets, so I can send text messages back and forth, but I can't figure out how to transfer files.

Let me describe my understanding of what I should do so far, so that someone could tell me if I'm on the right track:

1. At first, I need to establish a socket between the server and client
2. Set server socket to listen
3. Client will open a local file (.bmp lets say) using fread() and save the whole thing into buffer
4. Client then will write() the buffer into the socket
5. Server will accept() that buffer and using fwrite() it will recreate the bmp

Is this the right flow of action? Do I need to handle splitting the buffer into smaller pieces for transfer or will sockets handle that themselves?

Not jumping forums every other post might help maintain continuity
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.c...1533785&page=1

Your idea is basically correct, except that the client doesn't accept() bytes, it recv()'s them. accept() is something done on the server side when the client connects.

You do not have to handle breaking anything into packets. The protocol (TCP) will do that for you. But I wouldn't recommend writing 10 megabytes at a time, either. To send the contents of the file I'd use a loop and write a few kilobytes at a time.

You don't have to do anything special if the data is binary.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brewbuck

You don't have to do anything special if the data is binary.

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Except you need to transfer the file size beforehead so the client will know how many bytes to read from the socket. High chance that whole file will not arrive at one read