Question

I have written an asynchronous server in C# and a TCP client in Java for and an Android app. The client can send messages fine to the server and they are received when they are sent. However when I send a message from the server to the client, the client only displays the message after the server is shutdown (i.e. when the socket closes).
The strange thing is that I have written a client in C# as well and that receives messages as soon as they are sent.

The C# server and client both use the asynchronous begin* and end* methods and the Java client uses a stream reader/writer.

Can anyone please suggest why the Java client is behaving in this way and how to remedy this?

Thanks.

Client Code:

    public void run() {

    mRun = true;

    try {
        //here you must put your computer's IP address.
        InetAddress serverAddr = InetAddress.getByName(SERVERIP);

        Log.e("TCP Client", "C: Connecting...");

        //create a socket to make the connection with the server
        socket = new Socket(serverAddr, SERVERPORT);

        try {
            if (out != null)
            {
                //send the message to the server
                out = new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream())), true);

                Log.e("TCP Client", "C: Sent.");

                Log.e("TCP Client", "C: Done.");
            }

            //receive the message which the server sends back
            in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));

            //in this while the client listens for the messages sent by the server
            while (mRun) {
                serverMessage = in.readLine();

                if (serverMessage != null && mMessageListener != null) {
                    //call the method messageReceived from MyActivity class
                    mMessageListener.messageReceived(serverMessage);

                    serverMessage = null;
                }
            }

            Log.e("RESPONSE FROM SERVER", "S: Received Message: '" + serverMessage + "'");

        } catch (Exception e) {

            Log.e("TCP", "S: Error", e);

        } finally {
            //the socket must be closed. It is not possible to reconnect to this socket
            // after it is closed, which means a new socket instance has to be created.
            socket.close();
        }

    } catch (Exception e) {

        Log.e("TCP", "C: Error", e);

    }

}

Server Code:

public void Send(String data)
    {
        // Convert the string data to byte data using ASCII encoding.
        byte[] byteData = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(data);

        // Begin sending the data to the remote device.
        socket.BeginSend(byteData, 0, byteData.Length, 0, new AsyncCallback(SendCallback), socket);
    }

    private static void SendCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
    {
        try
        {
            //Retrieve the socket from the state object.
            Socket clientSocket = (Socket)ar.AsyncState;

            //send the data
            int bytesSent = clientSocket.EndSend(ar);
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
        }
    }

Answer 1

My guess is that the data you send from the server doesn’t end with an EOL sequence (\n or \r\n). So the readLine() method at client-side never returns, since it can only return when it’s sure the line is terminated (i.e. when an EOL sequence is received, or the connection is closed).