Sending/Receiving a file name before sending content through TCP/SSL socket

Question

I have the servers connected, but I don't really understand how TCP works well enough to accomplish the task. I want to send the file name before I starting writing the content, but how can I read the file name separately from the content. This was really easy in UDP with socket.receive(packet), but I can't think of a comparable way of doing this with TCP sockets.

Possible duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10367698/java-multiple-file-transfer-over-socket. — user207421, May 07 '15 at 02:24

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 07 '15 at 00:22

1

Write the length of the filename using a fixed number of bytes. Then write the filename.

On the receiving side, read the length of the filename and then once you know the length, read the filename.

answered May 07 '15 at 00:22

David Schwartz

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score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 07 '15 at 02:00

You have two options, depending on the design of your protocol:

send the filename length as a fixed-sized integer, then send the actual filename. The receiver can then read the length first and subsequently read however many bytes it indicates to read the filename.
```
<length><filename><file data>
```
send the filename and then send a unique delimiter, such as a CRLF. The receiver can then keep reading until it encounters the delimiter.
```
<filename><delimiter><file data>
```

Sending/Receiving a file name before sending content through TCP/SSL socket

2 Answers2