Writing data received through a socket onto a file

Question

I'm trying to collect data from a IP Address and Port using a TCP Client or a socket, but can't seem to find a way to successfully write what I receive to either the Console or to a file. Of the numerous sources I've sifted through online including MSDN documentation and various blogs, I found this one to be the most understandable, yet it still doesn't write anything to the console and I know the IP Address / Port (which I can't share) is supposed to be sending me a stream of data.

What am I doing wrong?

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace TCPIPChallenge
{
    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Client client = new Client();
            client.SetupServer();
        }
    }

    public class Client
    {

        private Socket _clientSocket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
        private byte[] _recieveBuffer = new byte[8142];

        private void SetupServer()
        {
            try
        {
            _clientSocket.Connect(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse("0.0.0.0"), 8888));
            Console.WriteLine("It was successful!");
        }
        catch (SocketException ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("There was an issue...");
            Debug.Write(ex.Message);
        }
        Console.WriteLine(_clientSocket.Connected);
        _clientSocket.BeginReceive(_recieveBuffer, 0, _recieveBuffer.Length, SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(ReceiveCallback), null);

    }

    private void ReceiveCallback(IAsyncResult AR)
    {
        //Check how much bytes are recieved and call EndRecieve to finalize handshake
        int recieved = _clientSocket.EndReceive(AR);
        Console.WriteLine(_clientSocket.Connected);
        if (recieved <= 0)
            return;

            //Copy the recieved data into new buffer , to avoid null bytes
            byte[] recData = new byte[recieved];
            Buffer.BlockCopy(_recieveBuffer, 0, recData, 0, recieved);

            //Process data here the way you want , all your bytes will be stored in recData
            Console.WriteLine(recData.ToString());

            //Start receiving again
            _clientSocket.BeginReceive(_recieveBuffer, 0, _recieveBuffer.Length, SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(ReceiveCallback), null);
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

It seems you are not waiting for the result to be displayed. Put a Console.Read(); in your Main.

public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Client client = new Client();
            client.SetupServer();
            Console.Read();
        }

Answer 2

This seems like the suspect here:

Console.WriteLine(recData.ToString());

You can't just call ToString on a byte array expecting it to turn into a string because there are many different types of encoding that can convert bytes into string and vice versa. Some encoding takes more bytes than others, like UTF-8 and UTF-16 for example.

Example using Unicode encoding

Converting your message to bytes:

byte[] data = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes("Hello!");

Displaying the data again:

byte[] recData = new byte[recieved];
string message = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetString(recData);
Console.WriteLine(message); // "Hello!"

Ensure that you use similar encoding on both server and client side to get consistant data.

Different encoding types: UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32