can someone please help me out with this... I've been struggling all day.
So I'm trying to learn Async sockets which is something that's been giving me trouble.
The issue is basically the way I'm updating the ListBox with people who have joined the chat room's names:
Basically what I'm doing is having each client send "!!addlist [nickname]" when they join the server.
It's not ideal as it doesn't check for duplicates etc. but now I just want to know why it won't work. Whenever somebody adds a name they haven't seen before, they will also send "!!addlist [nick]"
In this way, every time someone joins, the lists should be updated for everyone. The issue seems to be that all the clients start communicating at the same time and it interferes with the buffer.
I've tried using a separate buffer for every client so that's not the issue. I've tried using lock() but that doesn't seem to be working either.
Essentially what happens is the buffers seem to truncate; where there is data from two different people in the same buffer.
Please just tell me what I'm doing wrong with the buffers or on the client side:
Note that the async socket is using Send instead of BeginSend. I've tried both methods and they run into the same issue... so it's probably client side?
public partial class Login : Form
{
private ChatWindow cw;
private Socket serverSocket;
private List<Socket> socketList;
private byte[] buffer;
private bool isHost;
private bool isClosing;
public void startListening()
{
try
{
this.isHost = true; //We're hosting this server
cw.callingForm = this; //Give ChatForm the login form (this) [that acts as the server]
cw.Show(); //Show ChatForm
cw.isHost = true; //Tell ChatForm it is the host (for display purposes)
this.Hide(); //And hide the login form
serverSocket.Bind(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, int.Parse(portBox.Text))); //Bind to our local address
serverSocket.Listen(1); //And start listening
serverSocket.BeginAccept(new AsyncCallback(AcceptCallback), null); //When someone connects, begin the async callback
cw.connectTo("127.0.0.1", int.Parse(portBox.Text), nicknameBox.Text); //And have ChatForm connect to the server
}
catch (Exception) { /*MessageBox.Show("Error:\n\n" + e.ToString());*/ } //Let us know if we ran into any errors
}
public void AcceptCallback(IAsyncResult AR)
{
try
{
Socket s = serverSocket.EndAccept(AR); //When someone connects, accept the new socket
socketList.Add(s); //Add it to our list of clients
s.BeginReceive(buffer, 0, buffer.Length, SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(ReceiveCallback), s); //Begin the async receive method using our buffer
serverSocket.BeginAccept(new AsyncCallback(AcceptCallback), null); //And start accepting new connections
}
catch (Exception) {}
}
public void ReceiveCallback(IAsyncResult AR) //When a message from a client is received
{
try
{
if (isClosing)
return;
Socket s = (Socket)AR.AsyncState; //Get the socket from our IAsyncResult
int received = s.EndReceive(AR); //Read the number of bytes received (*need to add locking code here*)
byte[] dbuf = new byte[received]; //Create a temporary buffer to store just what was received so we don't have extra data
Array.Copy(buffer, dbuf, received); //Copy the received data from our buffer to our temporary buffer
foreach (Socket client in socketList) //For each client that is connected
{
try
{
if (client != (Socket)AR.AsyncState) //If this isn't the same client that just sent a message (*client handles displaying these*)
client.Send(dbuf); //Send the message to the client
}
catch (Exception) { }
} //Start receiving new data again
s.BeginReceive(buffer, 0, buffer.Length, SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(ReceiveCallback), s);
}
catch (Exception) { /*cw.output("\n\nError:\n\n" + e.ToString());*/ }
}
public void SendCallback(IAsyncResult AR)
{
try
{
Socket s = (Socket)AR.AsyncState;
s.EndSend(AR);
}
catch (Exception) { /*cw.output("\n\nError:\n\n" + e.ToString());*/ }
}
Here is the client side:
public void getData()
{
try
{
byte[] buf = new byte[1024];
string message = "";
while(isConnected)
{
Array.Clear(buf, 0, buf.Length);
message = "";
clientSocket.Receive(buf, buf.Length, SocketFlags.None);
message = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buf);
if (message.StartsWith("!!addlist"))
{
message = message.Replace("!!addlist", "");
string userNick = message.Trim();
if (!namesBox.Items.Contains(userNick))
{
addNick(userNick.Trim());
}
continue;
}
else if (message.StartsWith("!!removelist"))
{
message = message.Replace("!!removelist", "");
string userNick = message.Trim();
removeNick(userNick);
output("Someone left the room: " + userNick);
continue;
}
else if (!namesBox.Items.Contains(message.Substring(0, message.IndexOf(":"))))
{
addNick(message.Substring(0, message.IndexOf(":")).Trim()); //So they at least get added when they send a message
}
output(message);
}
}
catch (Exception)
{
output("\n\nConnection to the server lost.");
isConnected = false;
}
}
Here is my addNick function that seems to fix some things?
public void addNick(string n)
{
if (n.Contains(" ")) //No Spaces... such a headache
return;
if (n.Contains(":"))
return;
bool shouldAdd = true;
n = n.Trim();
for (int x = namesBox.Items.Count - 1; x >= 0; --x)
if (namesBox.Items[x].ToString().Contains(n))
shouldAdd = false;
if (shouldAdd)
{
namesBox.Items.Add(n);
output("Someone new joined the room: " + n);
sendRaw("!!addlist " + nickName);
}
}
I think the issue is that some of the packets are being skipped?
Maybe there's too much code in the client after Receive before it gets called again?
Should I create a separate thread for each message so that receive runs constantly? (Dumb)
Should I have my client use Async receives and sends as well?
I have a feeling that is the answer ^
With all of the checks I do, I managed to clean up the duplicate name issue... but i regularly receive messages with spaces and partial messages from other clients it seems.
