Question

I would like to connect to a listening server and transmit some data. I looked at the examples available but they seem to have extra functions that do not seem very helpful to me (i.e. connect, fortune, etc.). This is the code I have so far:

QTcpSocket t;
t.connectToHost("127.0.0.1", 9000);

Assuming the server is listening and robust, what do I need to implement to send a data variable with datatype QByteArray?

Answer 1

very simple with QTcpSocket. Begin as you did…

void MainWindow::connectTcp()
{
    QByteArray data; // <-- fill with data

    _pSocket = new QTcpSocket( this ); // <-- needs to be a member variable: QTcpSocket * _pSocket;
    connect( _pSocket, SIGNAL(readyRead()), this, SLOT(readTcpData()) );

    _pSocket->connectToHost("127.0.0.1", 9000);
    if( _pSocket->waitForConnected() ) {
        _pSocket->write( data );
    }
}

void MainWindow::readTcpData()
{
    QByteArray data = pSocket->readAll();
}

Be aware, though, that for reading from the TcpSocket you may receive the data in more than one transmission, ie. when the server send you the string "123456" you may receive "123" and "456". It is your responsibility to check whether the transmission is complete. Unfortunately, this almost always results in your class being stateful: the class has to remember what transmission it is expecting, whether it has started already and if it’s complete. So far, I haven’t figured out an elegant way around that.