How do I receive udp packets with winsock in c++?

Question

As an attempt at wrapping my head around udp sockets I\'ve tried to port the code from this tutorial page http://www.linuxhowtos.org/C_C++/socket.htm to winsock (running on

Answer 1

The following UDP test application works correctly on my setup - Windows 7, VS 2013.

I created some light-weight wrapper classes to do resource management, and turns error codes into exceptions. This makes the client and server code easier to read. Please be sure to run the server first.

Network.h

#include <WinSock2.h>
#include <WS2tcpip.h>
#include <system_error>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

#pragma once

class WSASession
{
public:
    WSASession()
    {
        int ret = WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2, 2), &data);
        if (ret != 0)
            throw std::system_error(WSAGetLastError(), std::system_category(), "WSAStartup Failed");
    }
    ~WSASession()
    {
        WSACleanup();
    }
private:
    WSAData data;
};

class UDPSocket
{
public:
    UDPSocket()
    {
        sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_UDP);
        if (sock == INVALID_SOCKET)
            throw std::system_error(WSAGetLastError(), std::system_category(), "Error opening socket");
    }
    ~UDPSocket()
    {
        closesocket(sock);
    }

    void SendTo(const std::string& address, unsigned short port, const char* buffer, int len, int flags = 0)
    {
        sockaddr_in add;
        add.sin_family = AF_INET;
        add.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(address.c_str());
        add.sin_port = htons(port);
        int ret = sendto(sock, buffer, len, flags, reinterpret_cast<SOCKADDR *>(&add), sizeof(add));
        if (ret < 0)
            throw std::system_error(WSAGetLastError(), std::system_category(), "sendto failed");
    }
    void SendTo(sockaddr_in& address, const char* buffer, int len, int flags = 0)
    {
        int ret = sendto(sock, buffer, len, flags, reinterpret_cast<SOCKADDR *>(&address), sizeof(address));
        if (ret < 0)
            throw std::system_error(WSAGetLastError(), std::system_category(), "sendto failed");
    }
    sockaddr_in RecvFrom(char* buffer, int len, int flags = 0)
    {
        sockaddr_in from;
        int size = sizeof(from);
        int ret = recvfrom(sock, buffer, len, flags, reinterpret_cast<SOCKADDR *>(&from), &size);
        if (ret < 0)
            throw std::system_error(WSAGetLastError(), std::system_category(), "recvfrom failed");

        // make the buffer zero terminated
        buffer[ret] = 0;
        return from;
    }
    void Bind(unsigned short port)
    {
        sockaddr_in add;
        add.sin_family = AF_INET;
        add.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(INADDR_ANY);
        add.sin_port = htons(port);

        int ret = bind(sock, reinterpret_cast<SOCKADDR *>(&add), sizeof(add));
        if (ret < 0)
            throw std::system_error(WSAGetLastError(), std::system_category(), "Bind failed");
    }

private:
    SOCKET sock;
};

Server

#include "Network.h"

int main()
{
    try
    {
        WSASession Session;
        UDPSocket Socket;
        char buffer[100];

        Socket.Bind(100);
        while (1)
        {
            sockaddr_in add = Socket.RecvFrom(buffer, sizeof(buffer));

            std::string input(buffer);
            std::reverse(std::begin(input), std::end(input));
            Socket.SendTo(add, input.c_str(), input.size());
        }
    }
    catch (std::system_error& e)
    {
        std::cout << e.what();
    }
}

Client

#include "Network.h"

int main()
{
    try
    {
        WSASession Session;
        UDPSocket Socket;
        std::string data = "hello world";
        char buffer[100];

        Socket.SendTo("127.0.0.1", 100, data.c_str(), data.size());
        Socket.RecvFrom(buffer, 100);
        std::cout << buffer;
    }
    catch (std::exception &ex)
    {
        std::cout << ex.what();
    }
    char c;
    std::cin >> c;
}

Answer 2

Well, I'm not sure if winsock2.h works the same way in Windows and Linux, but, in Windows, when you create the socket, you must set the protocol you're using, either TCP or UDP:

SOCKET sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);

AF_INET = IPv4; SOCK_STREAM = Byte stream for TCP; IPPROTO_TCP = TCP Protocol.

For UDP (which i've never used before), according to MSDN it would be:

SOCKET sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_UDP);

SOCK_DGRAM = Byte stream for UDP; IPPROTO_UDP = UDP Protocol.

That code would work in Windows. I guess in Linux it would be similar.