Thread: Sending integers through a socket

Oh hai guise.

So I don't really know a lot of java,but I've been trying to make a server for my flash game.
I've been basing it heavily on the example here :How to make a multi-client Flash Java server | Broculos.net

I remember back when I worked with GameMaker and 39dll, I could write bytes and stuff in order in a buffer, and send that buffer to multiple clients.
I've managed to make it work sending strings, and using string manipulation, but I'm trying to get it right with sending integers and strings.

So far I have this.

/*
 * To change this template, choose Tools | Templates
 * and open the template in the editor.
 */
 
/**
 *
 * @author Fricken Hamster
 */
 
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
 
 
public class GameServerConnection extends Thread
{
    protected Socket socket;
    protected BufferedReader socketIn;
    protected PrintWriter socketOut;
    protected GameServer server;
    protected String clientName;
    protected int slotId;
    protected String slotIdString;
 
    public GameServerConnection( Socket socket, GameServer server)
    {
        this.socket = socket;
        this.server = server;
 
 
    }
 
    public SocketAddress getRemoteAddress()
    {
        return this.socket.getRemoteSocketAddress();
    }
 
    protected void debug( String str)
    {
        ACityMain.debug(str);
    }
 
    public void run()
    {
        try
        {
            this.socketIn = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader( this.socket.getInputStream()));
            this.socketOut = new PrintWriter(this.socket.getOutputStream() , true);
 
	    this.slotIdString = Integer.toString(this.slotId);
	    if ( slotIdString.length() < 2)
	    {
		slotIdString = "0" + slotIdString;
	    }
            //this.server.writeToAll( "01" + slotIdString );
            this.server.writeToAll( 1 , this.slotId , "");
 
            //String line = this.socketIn.readLine();
 
            //System.out.println(line);
	    int header = this.socketIn.read();
	    System.out.print(header);
            //while( line != null )
            while (header != 0)
	    {
                debug("recieved from " + this.clientName + ": " + header);
 
                //int header = Integer.parseInt(line.substring(0, 2));
		//String body = line.substring(2,line.length());
		//String newLine;
		String body;
		switch (header)
		{
		    case 2:
			body = this.socketIn.readLine();
			this.clientName = body;
			//newLine = "02" + this.slotIdString + body;
			//this.server.writeToAll(newLine);
			this.server.writeToAll(header, this.slotId, body);
			//debug("read 2");
		    break;
 
		    case 9:
			if( this.server.remove(this.slotId))
			{
			    this.finalize();
			    return;
			}
		    break;
 
		    case 10:
 
			//newLine = "10" + this.slotIdString + body;
			body = this.socketIn.readLine();
			this.server.writeToAll(header, this.slotId, body);
			//newLine);
		    break;
 
		}
		//line = this.socketIn.readLine();
 
            }
 
        }
        catch( Exception e)
        {
            debug( "Run Error:" + e.getMessage());
        }
    }
 
    public void write( int header , int id , String msg)
    {
	try
	{
	    this.socketOut.write(header);
	    this.socketOut.write(id);
	    this.socketOut.write(msg + "\u0000");
	    //this.socketOut.write(msg + "\u0000");
	    this.socketOut.flush();
	}
	catch( Exception e)
        {
            debug( "Write Error:" + e.getMessage());
        }
    }
 
 
    protected void finalize()
    {
	try
	{
	    this.socketIn.close();
	    this.socketOut.close();
	    this.socket.close();
	    debug("connection closed at " + this.getRemoteAddress());
	}
	catch( Exception e)
        {
            debug( "Finalize Error:" + e.getMessage());
        }
    }
 
}

Can anyone help me, or point me towards some examples/documentation of what I neeD? Thanks!

I'm not sure there's enough info there for someone to be able to give you constructive advice, but PrintWriter (always read the API documentation) may be a poor choice for socketOut. From the API docs:

It does not contain methods for writing raw bytes

For testing, you could change the underlying Stream to a ByteArrayOutputStream(vs getting one from the socket) that you could then examine after you send/write some data to see what is being written to the output stream.

After having a quick peep at this again, I reckon your simplest way forward (least changes) is to format your ints as Strings and do string-to-int conversion in Flash. What will be happening when you write an int on a PrintWriter is that the int will be converted to a single character, and characters on the Java platform are 16-bits. While you're in the API docs, read PrintWriter.write(int) and follow the link to the method it overrides in Writer.write(int) - there's a message in there specially for you, I guess.

If you've tested the Flash/Java chat software and it works well, I think you should go for a low-fat fix. You need a fixed-width format for your message to make decoding it easy at the client, so have a think about how big those ints can be, and then string format them at a width that will cope for the largest and smallest values. ints are 32-bit, so you may be looking at sending an 8-character hex string and decoding that in Flash.