socket data sending problem in python

Question

im trying to do a simple socket test program for a school project using the socket module, but im having difficulty in sending data between the client and host program.

so far all tutorials and examples have used something along the lines of:

 s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
 host = socket.gethostname()
 port = 12345
 s.connect((host, port))

and received it on the server end with:

 s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
 host = ''
 port = 12345
 s.bind((host, port))
 s.listen(1)
 conn, addr = s.accept()
 print ('client is at', addr)
 data = conn.recv(5)
 print(data)

it all works fine, except for when i try to use:

 s.send("hello")

to send data between the client and server, i just get this error message:

 Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "C:/Users/xxxxx/Documents/code/chatroom/client3.py", line 9, in 
 s.send("hello")
 TypeError: 'str' does not support the buffer interface

if anyone can either show me what im doing wrong, what this means and what's causing it, or even better how to fix it it would be greatly appreciated

Answer 1

Are you using Python 3.x? Try sending bytes instead of strings:

s.send(b"hello")

Or switch to using Python 2.7

Answer 2

You didn't say which version of Python you're using, but I think that you're using Python 3.

A socket handles bytes, not Unicode strings, so you need to encode the Unicode strings to bytes before sending, and decode the bytes to Unicode strings after receiving.