Data corrupted from iOS to Socket

Question

I am sending a 3 dimensional array data from my iOS project to a socket server java code. I send in bytes format. Socket is receiving the data at this line, while ((read = input.read(bufferr)) > 0) { String s = new String(bufferr); }

But the output doesn't look proper readable text. It is coming like below.

Ä£ÄÄÄXUIButtonVSubmitS123“!X$classesZ$classname£ ^NSMutableArrayWNSArrayXNSObject^NSMutableArray“
$Ä£%&'ÄÄ    Ä
WUILabelYUser nameS340܆_NSKeyedArchiver(25:<HNSZegjlnsuy{}àèìò°¨∞ø«–fl‰ÊÍÏÓ¯-ˇ˛END
Found last byte END, which has appended by Client
decodedData []: [B@394a8cd1
While loop came out

iOS code:

NSMutableArray *dataArray;
dataArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:2];

[dataArray insertObject:[NSMutableArray arrayWithObjects :@"UIButton",@"Submit",@"123",nil] atIndex:0];
[dataArray insertObject:[NSMutableArray arrayWithObjects :@"UILabel",@"User name",@"340",nil] atIndex:1];


NSLog(@"dataArray:  %@", dataArray);

NSData *arrayData = [NSKeyedArchiver archivedDataWithRootObject:dataArray];

NSMutableData *data = [NSMutableData data];

data = [arrayData mutableCopy];

NSData *newData = [@"END" dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF16StringEncoding];
[data appendData:newData];


int num = [outputStream write:[data bytes] maxLength:([data length])];
if ( -1 == num )
{
    NSLog(@"Error writing to stream %@: %@", outputStream, [outputStream streamError]);

}
else
{
    NSLog(@"Wrote %i bytes to stream %@.", num, outputStream);
}

Socket Server:

public SocketConnection(Socket socket, HashMap<String, byte[]> dataHashMap, ArrayList<HashMap<String, ClientInfo>> myList) {

        super("Thread 1");

        this.socket = socket;
        this.hm = dataHashMap;
        this.clientList = myList;

        try {
            pw = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
        } catch (IOException e1) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e1.printStackTrace();
        }

        System.out.println("Socket Called first time.");

        pw.println("SUCCESS");
        pw.flush();

        try {
            input = socket.getInputStream();
            scannerObj = new Scanner(socket.getInputStream()); 
            clientOutput = socket.getOutputStream();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
    }

    }

    @Override
    public void run() {

        do
        {
            ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();               
            byte[] bufferr = new byte[1024];
            int read = 0;
            long numWritten = 0;
            try {
                while ((read = input.read(bufferr)) > 0) {
                    baos.write(bufferr, 0, read);
                    numWritten += read;
                    System.out.println("numWritten: " + numWritten);

                    String s = new String(bufferr);
                    System.out.println("s:" + s);

                    // If END found, just end the reading
                    if ( s.contains("END") )
                    {
                        System.out.println("decodedData []: " + bufferr.toString());
                        break;
                    }
                }
            } catch (IOException e1) {
                // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                e1.printStackTrace();
            }       
            try {
                baos.flush();
            } catch (IOException e1) {
                // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                e1.printStackTrace();
            }       



        } while (scannerObj.hasNext());

    }

How to get the proper array data in my socket code? Please advise!

Answer 1

You should probably use some form of intermediate format like JSON or XML. archivedDataWithRootObject: generates a binary plist - which is a proprietary Apple data format.

Look at the NSJSONSerialization class which is able to archive your NSArray, NSDictionary, NSNumber, etc. into JSON - which is a human and computer readable format.

I don't know much about Java, but I'm pretty sure it has a JSON parser.

Example:

NSData *data = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:dataArray
                                               options:0
                                                 error:nil];

The data now contains the data you should sent to your server.