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Accessing byte array values from socket inputStream

I am attempting to retrieve the byte values from an InputStream which is being sent to the socket. I have used many ways but it always prints me the address of the byte array instead of its contents.
Below is my code for Client and Server. When a packet is sent from the client to the server, the server instantiates a new Thread to handle the connection. So slaveSocket is the socket I want to use for this.
public class TCPClient {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException{
Socket socket;
String address;
int port;
String userInput;
String serverResponse;
PrintWriter out;
BufferedReader in;
//read characters from user
BufferedReader stdIn;
if (args.length != 2) {
System.err.println("Usage: java EchoClient <address> <port>");
System.exit(1);
}
byte[] mode = "octet".getBytes(Charset.forName("UTF-8"));
address = args[0];
port = Integer.parseInt(args[1]);
try{
//connect socket to server
socket = new Socket(address, port);
//Construct PrintWriter to write objects to the socket
out = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
//Construct BufferedReader to read input from the socket
in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
//Another reader to read characters typed by the user
stdIn = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
//scanner for menu option
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
int menuOption;
System.out.println("Press 1 to read from file or 2 to write to file");
menuOption = scanner.nextInt();
if (menuOption == 1){
String filename = "";
String text = "";
System.out.println("Enter file name");
filename = scanner.next();
byte[] packet = new byte[512];
//Constructing the RRQ Packet
//Ading the OPCODE
packet[0] = 1;
//adding the filename
filename.getBytes(Charset.forName("UTF-8"));
byte[] filenameB = filename.getBytes(Charset.forName("UTF-8"));
System.arraycopy(filenameB,0,packet,1, filenameB.length);
//adding a 0
packet[filenameB.length +1] = 0;
//adding the mode
System.arraycopy(mode,0,packet,1+filenameB.length+1,mode.length);
//adding the last 0
packet[1+filenameB.length+1+mode.length+1] = 0;
out.println(packet);
}else if(menuOption == 2){
}
socket.close();
}catch(UnknownHostException e){
System.err.println("Dont know about host" + address);
System.exit(1);
}catch(IOException e){
System.err.println("Couldnt get I/O for the connection to " + address);
System.exit(1);
}
}
}
public class TCPServer {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException{
//port of the server
int port = 10000;
//Socket objects
ServerSocket masterSocket;
Socket slaveSocket;
//instantiate the server socket
masterSocket = new ServerSocket(port);
System.out.println("Server Started");
boolean flag1 = true;
while(true){
slaveSocket = masterSocket.accept();
System.out.println("Accepted TCP connection from: " +
slaveSocket.getInetAddress() + ", " + slaveSocket.getPort() + "...");
System.out.println("Initialising new Thread...");
new TCPServerThread(slaveSocket).start();
}
}
}
public class TCPServerThread extends Thread{
private Socket slaveSocket = null;
public TCPServerThread(Socket socket){
super("TCPServerThread");
this.slaveSocket = socket;
}
public void run(){
byte[] ClientPacket = new byte[512];
PrintWriter socketOutput;
InputStream socketInput;
try{
//send packet to client
socketOutput = new PrintWriter((slaveSocket.getOutputStream()), true);
//read packet from client
socketInput = new DataInputStream(slaveSocket.getInputStream());
ClientPacket = socketInput.readAllBytes();
System.out.println(new String(ClientPacket, StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
}catch (IOException e){
System.err.println(e);
}
}
}

You've hopelessly overengineered this.
Writer and Reader do character input and output. InputStream and OutputStream do byte input and output.
You turn byte-based stuff (and in the end, network ports are byte based, not character based) into character based stuff in dangerous ways and then are attempting to read and write bytes into and out of the char-based things.
The solution is simple. Just stop doing that. You have byte-based stuff, there is absolutely no need to involve Reader and Writer.
A bunch of lines that cause problems:
out.println(packet);
PrintStreams are debug aids. You can't use them for any of this. For example, this line will print newlines (definitely not something you'd want in a byte based stream system!), and will print 'objects' - it does that by invoking the .toString() method, and the toString method of arrays are mostly useless. That explains why you see what you see. This is not how you send bytes. You cannot send bytes to a PrintStream (which is a confused mess, as it tries to let you send characters to a byte based system. As I said, you use it for debugging and nothing else. You should not be using it here at all).
new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream())
This is dangerous. You're turning a byte based system (InputStream) into a char-based one (Reader) and this always means somebody is making an explicit, 'out of band' (not based on the data in that stream) decision about charset encoding. In this case, as per the docs of InputStreamReader, you get the 'platform default'. Starting with JDK18, it's guaranteed to be UTF-8 fortunately, but before that, who knows what it is. You never want to call this constructor to avoid the confusion. new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream, StandardCharsets.UTF_8).
Mostly, though, don't make a reader in the first place. You have no interest whatsoever in reading streams of characters, you just want bytes.
If you have smallish strings and the information about where they 'end' is done 'out of band' (example: The size in bytes (not characters) is sent first, then X bytes that are the string, UTF_8 encoded), you can just read that in as bytes, and then make a string off of that, bypassing any need for Readers and Writers. Reader and Writer is useful only if the entire stream is all character based, or if you have huge strings (hundreds of megabytes) where their end can only be surmised by interpreting the data as characters first. (Mostly, those are horrible protocols that shouldn't be used).
//Construct PrintWriter to write objects to the socket
No, you can't write objects to sockets. Objects aren't bytes. You can write bytes to a socket; some objects will let themselves be turned into bytestreams but this is decidedly not a trivial job, and PrintWriter can't do it at all.
catch (IOException e) { System.err.println(e);
Most code has no reasonable route to 'deal' with them, but the solution to that is to throw them onwards. Not to catch the exception, print a note of despair, and just keep going on like nothing happened. Doing it right is also less code, so, win-win.
stdIn = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
//scanner for menu option
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
You're making 2 different ways to read standard input. That makes no sense. Pick one.
I tried to fix it for you:
public class TCPClient {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception { // always throw Exception from `main`.
if (args.length != 2) {
System.err.println("Usage: java EchoClient <address> <port>");
System.exit(1);
return; // Always return after System.exit.
}
byte[] mode = "octet".getBytes(Charset.forName("UTF-8"));
String address = args[0];
int port = Integer.parseInt(args[1]);
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
scanner.useDelimiter("\\R"); // split on newlines, not spaces. So much more logical.
// resources need to be safe-closed - use try-with!
try (var socket = new Socket(address, port);
var out = new BufferedOutputStream(socket.getOutputStream());
var in = socket.getInputStream()) {
System.out.println("Press 1 to read from file or 2 to write to file");
int menuOption = scanner.nextInt();
if (menuOption == 1) {
System.out.println("Enter file name");
String filename = scanner.next();
//Constructing the RRQ Packet
//Adding the OPCODE
out.write(1);
out.write(filename.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
out.write(0);
// The above is dangerous; NUL (0) is actually a valid char.
// A proper way to send strings is to send length in bytes
// first. I'll leave it to you to fix your protocol.
// If it can't be fixed, scan for `\0` chars and get rid of em.
//adding the mode
out.write(mode);
out.write(0);
}else if (menuOption == 2) {
}
}
}
Sending bytes one at a time can be slow (as it ends up sending an entire packet) but can also be useful - the data is just sent, instead of waiting perhaps for a long time for more data. In your case, you send it all in one go, so sending it all off very quickly is not a good idea. Hence, why the outputstream is wrapped in a BufferedOutputStream, which fixes that. You can always use flush() to force sending now, in case you want to keep the connection open (close(), naturally, also flushes).
It's fine if you want to use a byte[] packet instead, but it seems convoluted and unneccessary here. out.write(someByteArray), where out is an OutputStream of some sort, works fine. out.println(byteArray), where out is a Writer of some sort, or a PrintStream - doesn't work at all. (It would take the array, call toString() on it which isn't useful, then convert those bytes using some unknown charset and send that, and none of that is what you want).
You'll need to similarly eliminate PrintStream and the like from your server code.

UDP client does not receive bytes

This question has been asked a lot, but so far, none of the solutions that I applied from previous answers have helped me.
Main goal
I am trying to learn UDP conexions and this is my attempt. I want to have a client ask for a picture at a server via UDP and the server will send it. Then the client will create a file with that information given.
Explanation
My main idea is to ask the server for an image using a "GET" command (not the HTTP, just GET) followed by the name of the image(extension included). Then the client awaits an answer which is the image requested.
Problems
The client waits and answer which does no come
Research
From another similar question it was a problem that I was using the same PORT for both receive and connect, so I added two ports, receivingPORT and sendingPORT, no results from the Client.
From other similar questions, It was a Firewall problem. So, on a Win10 machine, I created a new rule for UDP in the Firewall for the ports that I am using for this application, and nothing was received by the Client...
I have checked that the image is loaded into byte[] and the image is sent. But on the Client, nothing is received and stays there waiting for a connection to come through
CODE from Server
public class UDPserver {
static DatagramSocket serverUDP;
static DatagramPacket packet;
static InetAddress address;
static byte[] buffer = new byte[65507];//65507
final static int receivingPORT = 6668;
final static int sendingPORT = 6669;
public static void main(String[] args) throws SocketException, IOException, InterruptedException{
boolean serverActive = true;
String order = "";
String file = "";
//Instantiate server
serverUDP = new DatagramSocket(receivingPORT);
while(serverActive){
//Kind of packet we want to receive
packet = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length);
System.out.println("Server awaiting connection...");
//Receive it
serverUDP.receive(packet);
System.out.println("Received packet from: " + packet.getAddress() + "/" + packet.getPort());
//What does the packet contain?
String msg = new String(packet.getData());
address = packet.getAddress();
System.out.println("Order from: " + address + "/" + receivingPORT + " says: " + msg);
try{
order = msg.split(" ")[0].trim();
file = msg.split(" ")[1].trim();
} catch (Exception e){
}
switch(order){
case("GET"):{
System.out.println("Sending back an image...");
buffer = loadImageFromServer(file);
packet = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length, address, sendingPORT);
Thread.sleep(5000);
serverUDP.send(packet);
System.out.println("Client served");
break;
}
case("DISCONNECT"):{
buffer = "Server is disconnecting...".getBytes();
packet = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length, address, sendingPORT);
serverUDP.send(packet);
serverActive = false;
serverUDP.close();
break;
}
}
}
}
static byte[] loadImageFromServer(String path) {
try {
System.out.println("Loading path: " + path);
//Instantiate a buffer from the image for it
BufferedImage img = ImageIO.read(UDPserver.class.getResource(path));
//Create a byte[] stream object to handle the data
ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
//Write the image data into those above with jpg format
ImageIO.write(img, "png", baos);
//Flush the information
baos.flush();
byte[] buffer = baos.toByteArray(); //Write it out on a byte string and return it
return buffer;
} catch (IOException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(UDPserver.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex.fillInStackTrace());
System.exit(-1);
}
return null;
}
}
CODE client
public class Client {
static DatagramSocket clientUDP;
static InetAddress address;
static DatagramPacket packetSend;
static DatagramPacket packetReceive;
static int SIZE = 65507;
final static int receivingPORT = 6669;
final static int sendingPORT = 6668;
static byte[] buffer = new byte[SIZE];
static Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
public static void main(String[] args) throws SocketException, UnknownHostException, IOException{
boolean clientLoop = true;
//Get address
address = InetAddress.getByName("localhost");
//Instantiate Client -> UDP
clientUDP = new DatagramSocket();
while(clientLoop){
System.out.print("Enter any key and press enter");
scan.next(); //Just to stop the loop
//Load the buffer
buffer = "GET imagenServidor.png".getBytes();
//buffer = "DISCONNECT".getBytes();
System.out.println("Buffer is ready");
//Arm the packet
packetSend = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length, address, sendingPORT);
System.out.println("Packet is armed!");
//Send the packet to the server
clientUDP.send(packetSend);
System.out.println("Order sent to server");
System.out.println("Waiting an answer");
packetReceive = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length, address, receivingPORT);
clientUDP.receive(packetReceive);
System.out.println("Server answered!");
ByteArrayInputStream bais = new ByteArrayInputStream(packetReceive.getData());
BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(bais);
System.out.println(image);
}
clientUDP.close();
}
}
NOTES
This is a UDP exercise

The Reason
MTU!
You are sending packets with long buffe through UDP directly, which may not work in most network circumstances.
A packet sent through UDP should not be longer than the network MTU, otherwise it would be dropped. The network MTU may not be more than 1500 on most net nods(routers/switchs/hosts...), and even smaller sometimes. Though some nods may do sigmentation for ip packets, but you should not count on it when you are using UDP.
Suggestions
Use TCP instead in this application, as for:
You are sending data which expected to be complete (otherwise it would be useless).
You do not care about congestion control algorithms.
So just go with TCP.
Edit Based on The Update of The Question
So, as this is an excercise, in which you have to use UDP only.
As a file might be useless unless it is complete, you have to make sure:
All packets are possible to pass the path. Which means network should be connected both physically and virtually, and packet size should always be smaller than the MTU.
If any packets are lost, both the receiver and the sender should be able to know.
If any apckets come out of order, the receiver should be able to know.
Sender should be able to cache and resend the packets which are not confirmed by the receiver yet.
Make sure your have a good network connection. Split the image buffer into buffer array with each buffer item length less than 1000bytes(should be safe).
Then let's design an amature but simple protocol for this:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| type | sequence number |
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
| payload ... |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ... |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
For types, we may need:
hello: 0x01
bye: 0x02
ack: 0x03
nack: 0x04
data: 0x05
feedback: 0x06
...
Sequence should be mono-increasing. e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4.... (Not necessory to start from 1 but OK)
It works like following:
Sender->Receiver: hello(seq=i)
Receiver->Sender: ack(seq=i)
# Sender->Receiver: hello(seq=i)
# if timeout and got no ack for seq=i
Sender->Receiver: data(seq=i+1)
Receiver->Sender: ack(seq=i+1)
# Sender->Receiver: hello(seq=i+1)
# if timeout and got no ack for seq=i+1
Sender->Receiver: data(seq=i+2)
Sender->Receiver: data(seq=i+3)
Receiver->Sender: ack(seq=i+2)
Receiver->Sender: ack(seq=i+3)
# Sender->Receiver: hello(seq=i+2)
# if timeout and got no ack for seq=i+2 or got nack for seq=i+2
Sender->Receiver: bye(seq=n)
Receiver->Sender: ack(seq=n)
# bye is not necessory

Firstly, I think you need to learn how to use wirshark or tcmpdump to analysis network streams when debugging, that will help you find out the problem and solve it.
As for your program, there are several problems the user207421 has mensioned. I think it's better to use TCP, but if you want to learn UDP by this way, the thing you need is to do a slim reliable UDP by yourself.
For example, you may need the following models
Build a send buffer and recive buffer, check every time if the buffer is empty, if not, send/receive and process it.（Cause UDP has MTU）
Add some extra format of information in the head of each datagram, which includes the size of the whole message, the sequence of the datagram, the left size, etc.(Cause you need to cut your message into many parts)
Build a controller, which need to have some function like retransmission, rebuild the message, etc.(Cause UDP is unreliable, you need to check the completeness of all parts)
Hope that can help you.

Java TCP Socket Byte Heap Memory Issue

I have a Java TCP Server Socket program that is expecting about 64 bytes of data from a piece of remote hardware. The Server code is:
public void run () throws Exception
{
//Open a socket on localhost at port 11111
ServerSocket welcomeSocket = new ServerSocket(11111);
while(true) {
//Open and Accept on Socket
Socket connectionSocket = welcomeSocket.accept();
DataInputStream dIn = new DataInputStream(connectionSocket.getInputStream());
int msgLen = dIn.readInt();
System.out.println("RX Reported Length: "+ msgLen);
byte[] msg = new byte[msgLen];
if(msgLen > 0 ) {
dIn.readFully(msg);
System.out.println("Message Length: "+ msg.length);
System.out.println("Recv[HEX]: " + StringTools.toHexString(msg));
}
}
}
This works correctly as I am able to test locally with a simple ACK program:
public class ACK_TEST {
public static void main (String[] args)
{
System.out.println("Byte Sender Running");
try
{
ACK_TEST obj = new ACK_TEST ();
obj.run();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
e.printStackTrace ();
}
}
public void run () throws Exception
{
Socket clientSocket = new Socket("localhost", 11111);
DataOutputStream dOut = new DataOutputStream(clientSocket.getOutputStream());
byte rtn[] = null;
rtn = new byte[1];
rtn[0] = 0x06; // ACK
dOut.writeInt(rtn.length); // write length of the message
dOut.write(rtn); // write the message
System.out.println("Byte Sent");
clientSocket.close();
}
}
And this correctly produces this output from the Server side:
However, when I deploy the same Server code on the Raspberry Pi and the hardware sends data to it, the data length is far greater and causes a heap memory issue (Even with the Heap pre-set at 512MB, which is definitely incorrect and unnecessary)
My presumption is I am reading the data wrong from the TCP socket as from the debug from the hardware, it's certainly not sending packets of this size.
Update: I have no access to the Client source code. I do however need to take the input TCP data stream, place it into a byte array, and then another function (Not shown) parses out some known HEX codes. That function expects a byte array input.
Update: I reviewed the packet documentation. It is a 10 byte header. The first Byte is a protocol identifier. The next 2 bytes is the Packet Length (Total number of bytes in the packet, including all the header bytes and checksum) and the last 7 are a Unique ID. Therefore, I need to read those 2 bytes and create a byte array that size.

Apparently the length from the header is about 1GB. Looks like the problem on the other end. Don't you mix low/big endian encoding?

Transferring Large Data with UDP protocol

I know TCP is better to send file but I have a homework about sending file via udp protocol . Is there any code example in C# or Java about sending file?
I have server-client example to send and recieve message. I tried to send the file using the same way but could not succeed. I may need an algorithm to divide the file small parts and send them via datagram, and I have an idea to put "md5" of the part as header of the array to check if the packet is lost or not.
Here is my try , my server side in java;
// 1. creating a server socket, parameter is local port number
sock = new DatagramSocket(7777);
// buffer to receive incoming data
byte[] buffer = new byte[65536];
DatagramPacket incoming = new DatagramPacket(buffer, buffer.length);
byte []bigByteArray=new byte[1024*1024*1024*1024];
// 2. Wait for an incoming data
echo("Server socket created. Waiting for incoming data...");
ByteBuffer target = ByteBuffer.wrap(bigByteArray);
// communication loop
while(true)
{
try
{
sock.receive(incoming);
String s = new String(incoming.getData());
if(s=="finish") break;
target.put(incoming.getData());
}
catch(Exception e)
{
}
}
fos.write(bigByteArray);
fos.close();echo("RECIEVED");
and my client side;
String s;
Path path=Paths.get("C:\\Users\\Toshiba\\Desktop\\aa.txt");
byte[] data = Files.readAllBytes(path);
try
{
sock = new DatagramSocket();
InetAddress host = InetAddress.getByName("localhost");
//take input and send the packet
byte [] part;
for (int i = -1; i < data.length; i=i+100)
{
if(sock.isConnected())
{
part=Arrays.copyOfRange(data,i+1,i+100 );
}
else i=i-100;
}
byte [] f="finish".getBytes();
DatagramPacket finalpac = new DatagramPacket(f ,f.length , host , port);
sock.send(finalpac);
}
Thank you in advance.

Several issues:
The following isn't correct:
sock.receive(incoming);
String s = new String(incoming.getData());
The final line should be
String s = new String(incoming.getData(), incoming.getOffset(), incoming.getLength());
and if you aren't receiving text you shouldn't be converting the data to a String at all.
Remove the sock.isConnected() test. DatagramSockets are not usually connected, and you certainly haven't connected this one.
The loop in which this is embedded does nothing useful. You are only sending the word "finish".

Java UDP socket - Data are left over at the server-side

I am implementing a really basic server-client model in Java, by using UDP sockets and I have come across a really strange issue.
All I want to do is let the user (client) send a message to the server and then the server will print it.
I have an example but I am missing something since I have the following issue:
If the client sends the message "a" to the server it gets received correctly.
If the client sends the message "bbb" to the server it gets received correctly.
If the client sends the message "c" to the server, then the server will print "cbb" as the received message.
It seems as if the server does clean some kind of buffer when it gets a new message.
This is the code I am using:
Server
import java.net.DatagramPacket;
import java.net.DatagramSocket;
import java.net.InetAddress;
public class UDPServer {
public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {
byte[] receive_data = new byte[256];
int recv_port;
DatagramSocket server_socket = new DatagramSocket(5000);
System.out.println("Server - Initialized server. Waiting for client on port 5000");
while (true) {
// System.out.println("Server - Listening for connections...");
DatagramPacket receive_packet = new DatagramPacket(receive_data, receive_data.length);
server_socket.receive(receive_packet);
String data = new String(receive_packet.getData());
InetAddress IPAddress = receive_packet.getAddress();
recv_port = receive_packet.getPort();
if (data.equals("q") || data.equals("Q")) {
System.out.println("Server - Exiting !");
break;
} else {
System.out.println("Server - Client from IP " + IPAddress + " # port " + recv_port + " said : " + data + " (length: " + receive_packet.getLength() + ")");
}
}
}
}
Client
public class UDPClient {
public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {
byte[] send_data = new byte[256];
BufferedReader infromuser = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
DatagramSocket client_socket = new DatagramSocket();
InetAddress IPAddress = InetAddress.getByName("localhost");
System.out.println("Client - Initialized the client...");
while (true) {
System.out.print("Client - Type Something (q or Q to quit): ");
String data = infromuser.readLine();
if (data.equals("q") || data.equals("Q")) {
System.out.println("Client - Exited !");
DatagramPacket send_packet = new DatagramPacket(send_data, send_data.length, IPAddress, 5000);
System.out.println("Client - Sending data : <" + data + ">");
client_socket.send(send_packet);
break;
} else {
send_data = data.getBytes();
DatagramPacket send_packet = new DatagramPacket(send_data, send_data.length, IPAddress, 5000);
System.out.println("Client - Sending data : <" + data + ">");
client_socket.send(send_packet);
}
}
client_socket.close();
}
}
I suppose that the mistake is something trivial, but my skills in network programming are limited, therefore I don't know what exactly it is.
Just to make clear, I am running both the server and the client at the same machine (mac) on different terminals, just in case it affects the situation in anyway.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT
...And I come back to answer my own question.
The problem was that I was not defining the amount of data that the server socket should expect to read.
Therefore when I change
String data = new String(receive_packet.getData());
with
String data = new String(receive_packet.getData(), 0, receive_packet.getLength());
everything worked smoothly.
Just for future reference and for people who might come across the same problem :)

When you're constructing the String based on the result, you're currently ignoring the length of the received packet.
After using DataSocket.receive(DatagramPacket), the length of the DatagramPacket should be set to the length that was actually received:
The length field of the datagram packet object contains the length of
the received message. If the message is longer than the packet's
length, the message is truncated.
This should fix the problem on the receiving side:
String data = new String(receive_packet.getData(), 0, receive_packet.getLength());
For this to work you also need to make sure the data sent is of the right size. In particular, don't use send_data.length to construct the outgoing DatagramPacket. This will always use the full length of the buffer). The length parameter isn't meant to be always send_data.length (otherwise the constructor would get it itself from the array), it's meant for the actual useful length of the message within that array.

On your first call this is what receive_data looks like:
--------------
|"a"| | |
--------------
On your second call:
--------------
|"b"|"b"| "b" | notice that the "a" in data_receive was overwritten
--------------
On your third call, you only send a single letter,
so the only part of the array that gets overwritten is the first element:
--------------
|"c"|"b"| "b" |
--------------
This is happening because there is still data left in the receive_data array in between messages to the server, a simple way around this would to just initialize a new array inside of you receive loop. That way every time you receive a message you will have a fresh array waiting for you.
while (true)
{
byte[] receive_data = new byte[256];
......
}

To solve the problem you should use length of receive_packet to create a String or array.
For higher performance in server side, it's better to initialize receive_packet before while section and reset its length at the end of while section to reuse it in loop : receive_packet.setLength(buffer.length);