send file via socket

Hi guys,
Do anyone here know how to send file via socket in unix? I need to use the client program to send file to server program. Any idea? If possible please provide me with some examples. thanks

this is a question for the networking forum
http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/
http://cboard.cprogramming.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28
http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showthread.php?t=41926
enjoy the reading.

What library are you using for Sockets, Berkley?
You may want to try this library. Should be possible, if not, I suppose fstream could just read the entire file into a string, and send it that way.

Moved to Networking/Device Communication board.

yup Berkley.. fstream could just read the entire file into a string? I'm sorry but still very new with socket programming. I read the link that send a String "hello world " from http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/ but I was wondering how can I transfer a file? stead of just a string that print out hello world ? And also how can the server reply to the client ? if i'm going to transfer file to the server.

In the end, it's all just an array of bytes which you're sending from one machine to another.

You just have to make the first part of the message mean
- here is a file
- this is it's name
- this is how long it is

Then you send
- this is the file data.

Yup, something like:

Code:

---

using namespace std;
fstream f("Myfile", ios::in);
string theFile="";
char buff[1024]
while(!f.eof())
{
    f.get(buff, 1023);
    theFile += buff;
    buff="";
}
f.close();

---

Then just send the string as per usual.... As for server/client responses, have you thought about enums?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vacuus

Yup, something like:

Code:

---

using namespace std;
fstream f("Myfile", ios::in);
string theFile="";
char buff[1024]
while(!f.eof())
{
    f.get(buff, 1023);
    theFile += buff;
    buff="";
}
f.close();

---

Then just send the string as per usual.... As for server/client responses, have you thought about enums?

---

Not good...
when f.get failes - you still add buff to the string...
Do not use eof flag to control the loop - check the return value of the input function...

vart

Quote:

---

check the return value of the input function

---

can you expand on this please.
i'm new to networking code and i'm not sure what input function?
do you mean to do error (exception) checking on the

Code:

---

f.get(buff, 1023);

---

Basically the f.get returns success or failure upon reading in the buffer from the file. So it is smarter to read as your break statement in the loop then check the eof of the filestream because that isn't set until you read past the end of the file so you can incur double reading of the last item or the stream could have failed for other reasons besides EOF.

f.eof() returns true when the EOF has been reached. As your loop is setup, this could happen:
1) f.get() reads data
2) f.feof() returns false
3) f.get() reads an EOF, and fails.
4) The remainder of the loop proceeds to corrupt the string.

Also, note:

Code:

---

theFile += buff;
buff="";

---

Since buff is a char array, this will only work for text files. This fails on binary files since std::string treats the pointer as a null terminated string.
The second line is just wrong because you're assigning a string literal to an array. (Shouldn't compile...)

There's no need to read the whole file in at once. (Indeed, doing so restricts the program to small files - what if I want to send a CD ISO?) Choose a buffer size, read as much as possible from the file to that buffer, and send it. Rinse, lather, repeat. 4KB, 16KB, etc buffers are probably fine. Remember: check for the amount of characters that were read from the file (fstream's gcount() ) and sent on the network (the return value of send() ) - although you may request a read or a send of some value, you might not get it. (Especially on the last read of the file, it'll probably be less.)

Also: pay attention to Salem's post on what must also be sent. Pay attention to byte ordering (network vs. host), and be sure the other end knows how much data you're sending, or how it could figure it out.