Readdir() erroneous output

Question

Using the server and client code. I tried adding ls functionality implemented via the readdir()

My *connection_handler looks like this:

void *connection_handler(void *socket_desc)
{
  //Get the socket descriptor
  int sock = *(int*)socket_desc;
  int n;
  int user_exists = 0;  

  char    sendBuff[3000], client_message[2000];
  char *command;
  char home_dir[500] = "simple_slash/simple_home/";
  char pwd[500];
  DIR *direc;
  struct dirent *temp_name;

  while((n=recv(sock,client_message,2000,0))>0) {
      //send(sock,client_message,n,0);
    if (user_exists!=0) {   
    printf("inside if case\n");
    /* get the first token */
    command = strtok(client_message," ");
    printf("%s\n",command );
    if (strcmp(command,"ls")==0) {
    printf("inside ls\n");

    command = strtok(NULL, " ");
    //ls ki permissions ka check
    //strcat(pwd,command);
    printf("%s\n", pwd);
    if ((direc= opendir (pwd)) != NULL) {
      /* print all the files and directories within directory */
      strcpy(sendBuff,"\0");
      while ((temp_name = readdir (direc)) != NULL) {
        strcat(sendBuff,temp_name->d_name);
        strcat(sendBuff,"\n");
      //      printf ("%s\n", temp_name->d_name);
      }
      send(sock, sendBuff,sizeof(sendBuff),0);
      closedir (direc);
    } else {
      perror ("could not open directory ");
      //return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }
  }
  else if (strcmp(command,"fput")==0) {
    printf("inside fput\n");
  }
  else if (strcmp(command,"fget")==0) {

  }
  else if (strcmp(command,"create_dir")==0) {
    /* code */
  }
  else {
    n=0;
    send(sock, "Invalid command. Please try again.",n,0);
  }
}
else {
  user_exists = 1;
  strcat(client_message,"\0");
  strcat(pwd,home_dir);
  strcat(pwd,client_message);
  mkdir (pwd, 0777);
  strcpy(sendBuff,"Welcome, ");
  strcat(sendBuff,client_message);
  strcat(sendBuff,"\n");
  send(sock, sendBuff,sizeof(sendBuff),0); 
}
memset(client_message, 0, 2000);
}
close(sock);

  if(n==0)
  {
    puts("Client Disconnected");
  }
  else
  {
    perror("recv failed");
  }
return 0;
}

When i run the ls command on the client side the code runs perfectly on the server side (verified by the printf statements in between)

But the output is returned on the client side every third time.

Server side terminal ouput:

abc@ubuntu:~/SE/hw1$ ./server

Socket created

bind done

Waiting for incoming connections...

Connection accepted

Handler assigned

inside if case

ls

inside ls

simple_slash/simple_home/user2

inside if case

ls

inside ls

simple_slash/simple_home/user2

inside if case

ls

inside ls

simple_slash/simple_home/user2

inside if case

ls

inside ls

simple_slash/simple_home/user2

inside if case

ls

inside ls

simple_slash/simple_home/user2

Client Side terminal output:

abc@ubuntu:~/SE/hw1$ ./client 

Connected successfully.

Enter Username : user2

Welcome, user2

ls

ls

..

folder1

.

ls

ls

ls

..

folder1

.

Line 1: Welcome < username >

Line 2: ls

Line 3: ls Gives output

---

Line 1: ls

Line 2: ls

Line 3: ls Gives output

---

What am i doing wrong here ?

Answer 1

What am i doing wrong here ?

The client code referred to at the beginning of the question reads a certain amount of data from the server connection only once each time a line is typed in - it does not necessarily read all data at the time of arrival. For this simplistic approach to work halfway it would be required that the server does not send more bytes than the client is willing to receive at once; since you say the output is returned on the client side every third time , the server seems to send about three times as many bytes as the client expects to receive, so it takes three passes through the client loop to collect just one response from the server.

I wrote "work halfway" because it is not guaranteed that the client receives a response with one recv() call even if its buffer is big enough; you should at least change your client so that it loops until it has read the full sizeof sendBuff from the server.