sockets - Sending some constraints to client from server in C#

Question

I have created a simple server using socket programming in C# which will receive a file from the client side. My sample code segment is given below.

I want to add some restrictions. I want to make a limit on the file size (such as 4 KB or 2 KB) and allowable file formats (such as .doc, .txt, .cpp, etc.) which will be sent to the client as soon as the client connects to the server so that the client can send files accordingly. How will I do that?

Sample code segment:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;

namespace FileTransfer
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Listen on port 1234

            TcpListener tcpListener = new TcpListener(IPAddress.Any, 1234);
            tcpListener.Start();

            Console.WriteLine("Server started");

            //Infinite loop to connect to new clients
            while (true)
            {
                // Accept a TcpClient
                TcpClient tcpClient = tcpListener.AcceptTcpClient();
                                Console.WriteLine("Connected to client");
                byte[] data = new byte[1024];
                NetworkStream ns = tcpClient.GetStream();
                int recv = ns.Read(data, 0, data.Length);
                StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(tcpClient.GetStream());

               //Will add some lines to add restrictions...

            }
        }
    }
}

Which additional lines will I have to add to the code to send the restrictions to client?

Answer 1

Basically I think mainly you need two things:

• define application protocol as suggested in other answer

• and handle partial read/writes

For handling partial reads (not sure how much such function is needed for write) you may use function like below:

public static void ReadWholeArray (Stream stream, byte[] data)
{
    int offset=0;
    int remaining = data.Length;
    while (remaining > 0)
    {
        int read = stream.Read(data, offset, remaining);
        if (read <= 0)
            throw new EndOfStreamException 
                (String.Format("End of stream reached with {0} bytes left to read", remaining));
        remaining -= read;
        offset += read;
    }
}

Thing is traditional Stream.Read() doesn't guarantee to read as many bytes as you told it, this method on the other hand, will ensure to have read as many bytes as specified in data.Length parameter. So you can use such function to implement the desired application protocol instead.

_{Some relevant information about such application protocols you will find here too}

---

Ok this is for example how the server could send file length limit and the file extension:

// Send string
string ext = ".txt";
byte [] textBytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(ext);
ns.Write(textBytes, 0, textBytes.Length); 

// Now, send integer - the file length limit parameter
int limit = 333;
byte[] intBytes = BitConverter.GetBytes(limit);
ns.Write(intBytes, 0, intBytes.Length); // send integer - mind the endianness

But you will still need some kind of protocol otherwise you should let client read the "full" stream and parse these data later somehow, which isn't trivial if the data doesn't have fixed length etc - otherwise how will the client distinguish which part of the message is text, which integer?