C# BinaryWriter buffer for sending segments?

Question

I'm not sure that a "Buffer" is what I'm looking for, so I'll show you my problem and then you guys can decide if that's the correct word and on a solution. Currently I'm working on creating a networking port for the Java DataOutputStream class in C#. The last thing I have to do is fix this issue with sending segmented information.

Here's my WriteInt method in C# (ClientOutput is an instance of BinaryWriter)

public void WriteInt(int v)
{
    ClientOutput.Write (((uint)v >> 24) & 0xFF);
    ClientOutput.Write (((uint)v >> 16) & 0xFF);
    ClientOutput.Write (((uint)v >> 8) & 0xFF);
    ClientOutput.Write (((uint)v >> 0) & 0xFF);
    IncCount (4);
}

For anyone who wants to compare; here's the original in Java

public final void writeInt(int v) throws IOException {
       out.write((v >>> 24) & 0xFF);
       out.write((v >>> 16) & 0xFF);
       out.write((v >>>  8) & 0xFF);
       out.write((v >>>  0) & 0xFF);
       incCount(4);
}

Normally in java you would have to call "Flush()" before the data would be sent to the server or client; However it appears that the BinaryWriter automatically flushes whenever you call "Write()"

Here's the "ReadInt()" code in Java.

public final int readInt() throws IOException {
        int ch1 = in.read();
        int ch2 = in.read();
        int ch3 = in.read();
        int ch4 = in.read();
        if ((ch1 | ch2 | ch3 | ch4) < 0)
            throw new EOFException();
        return ((ch1 << 24) + (ch2 << 16) + (ch3 << 8) + (ch4 << 0));
}

When the Java code is executed to "WriteInt" and ReadInt is called on the server, the value is displayed properly; However currently the server is processing the integer 4 different times and displaying an integer value based on the segments.

Example Input (C#):

Client.WriteInt(1000);

Example output(Java):

0
0
50331648
-402653184

When the output should be:

1000

Please bear with me as I just picked up C# a few days ago, and I may be asking a stupid question.

Answer 1

BinaryWriter has a bunch of Write() method overloads and it looks like you are calling the Write(Int32) overload, which of course sends four 4-byte integers.

You should be able to fix the problem simply by casting your values to byte in the call to Write():

public void WriteInt(int v)
{
    ClientOutput.Write ((byte)(((uint)v >> 24) & 0xFF));
    ClientOutput.Write ((byte)(((uint)v >> 16) & 0xFF));
    ClientOutput.Write ((byte)(((uint)v >> 8) & 0xFF));
    ClientOutput.Write ((byte)(((uint)v >> 0) & 0xFF));
    IncCount (4);
}

Note that technically speaking, you should not need to cast the value v to uint before the shift. Even if sign-extension were to occur, you're masking off all but the last byte anyway. But that part shouldn't hurt anything.

Check out Jon Skeet's endian-aware version of BinaryWriter. There's discussion and some links here: BinaryWriter Endian issue