Agfdhyk

I have a question regarding C and byte order. I am programming a small TCP server which is receiving a message. I however have trouble receiving messages. I can only find TCP examples of transferring strings. However, my message includes single toggled bits.

recv(socketClient, buffer, strlen(buffer), 0);

I am specifically asking the following: What Type do I need to initialize the buffer and how do I then process it (split it into an array of different integers ie.)

My current method for Strings:

int max_size = 512;



char buffer[max_size];// buffer to read server message

memset(buffer, ' ', sizeof(buffer)); //fill buffer memory with an empty char

To answer your questions first:

With what Type do I need to initialize the buffer

By "type" I assume you actually need value, as in what you initialize the buffer with. To answer - you don't need to fill it with some kind of known value at all. The return value of recv function tells you how many bytes you've received. Everything within that amount is valid data, everything else you can treat as garbage and can use the remaining space to for example null-terminate the string. Assuming you transfer only strings of course.

how do I then process it (split it into an array of different integers ie)

That's what protocols and serialization methods deal with. Those tell you things like the oder in which data gets sent across, how to interpret it, as well as tell you how to convert the data your program holds into byte buffer (argument to send) and then how to convert it back to get the same data as before the conversion (reading from recv).

Now to further elaborate, given the limited data given in the question: Unless you exchange data with a host that you know uses certain protocol (HTTP for example) or transfers data in some known format (JSON for example) and therefore could use some kind of library to do this job for you, you implement serialization and deserialization on your own. In short - you must know how the remote end converted data it sent into a byte buffer and you do the same operations in reverse order. Assuming you're on the same platform as the connected host, for a very quick proof-of-concept you can go with memcpy but any further than that I do not recommend it. How you go about this is totally up to you. Personally I'd recommend looking into the topic of data serialization, starting from simple examples and building your way up. Such topic is too broad to explain even in a minimal form in a single answer.