Simple Data Exchange with Ruby TCP Sockets

Socket programming with Ruby is something I am just starting to explore, but so far it has been a joy.

Server

First, create a simple TCP server which I store as server.rb. This will simply open a socket on port tcp/7777 and print out anything which is submitted to that port.

# server.rb
require 'socket'

server = TCPServer.new(7777)

Socket.accept_loop(server) do |conn|
  puts conn.read
  conn.close
end

Test this by running opening a terminal window and running the server file. Echo some text to it from another terminal with nc.

Terminal 1

$ ruby server.rb 
Hello Socket
^C

Terminal 2

$ echo "Hello Socket" | nc localhost 7777

Client

Next, create a client file to test this with. For this example I set the server address and message as constants, but more realistically this would be passed to the client dynamically.

# client.rb
require 'socket'

def send_message(address, port, message)
  Socket.tcp(address, port) do |conn|
    conn.write(message)
    conn.close
  end
end


send_message('localhost', 7777, 'Hello World')

If I run the client script while my server is running it will print out "Hellow World" in the server output.