C - Problems extracting data from buffer. Possibly endianess-related - c

Question

I'm having some difficulties extracting data from a buffer using memcpy.
First, I memcpy some variables into a buffer:
int l1_connect(const char* hostname, int port) {
// Variables to be stored in the buffer
char *msg = "Hi, I'm a message"; // strlen(msg) == 17
uint16_t sender_id = htons(1); // sizeof(sender_id) == 2
uint16_t packet_size = htons(sizeof(packet_size)+sizeof(sender_id)+strlen(msg)); // sizeof(packet_size) == 2
// Checking values
printf("l1_connect():\nsender_id: %d, packet_size: %d\n\n", ntohs(sender_id), ntohs(packet_size));
// sender_id == 1, packet_size == 21
// The buffer
char buf[100];
// Copying everything
memcpy(&buf, &sender_id, sizeof(sender_id));
memcpy(&buf+sizeof(sender_id), &packet_size, sizeof(packet_size));
memcpy(&buf+sizeof(sender_id)+sizeof(packet_size), &msg, strlen(msg));
// Passing buf to another function
int bytes_sent = l1_send(1, buf, sizeof(buf));
}
I then try to extract that data (checking, before sending over UDP socket):
int l1_send( int device, const char* buf, int length ) {
// Variables in which to store extracted data
uint16_t id = 0;
uint16_t size = 0;
char msg[50];
memcpy(&id, &buf, sizeof(id));
memcpy(&size, &buf+sizeof(id), sizeof(size));
int remaining = ntohs(size) - (sizeof(id) + sizeof(size));
printf("l1_send():\nremaining: %d\n", remaining); // -37041
// memcpy-ing with correct(?) offset
memcpy(&msg, &buf+sizeof(id)+sizeof(size), 50);
msg[49] = '\0';
printf("id: %d\n", ntohs(id)); // 8372
printf("size: %d\n", ntohs(size)); // 37045
printf("msg: %s\n", msg); // ��$_�
return 0; // For now
}
As you can see, the values aren't quite what I'm expecting. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

Your pointer math is incorrect. You're using &buf where you should just be using buf. If this doesn't explain what is wrong, nothing else I can say will:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
char buff[100];
printf("buff : %p\nbuff+10 : %p\n&buff+10 : %p\n", buff, buff+10, &buff+10);
return 0;
}
Output (varies by platform, obviously)
buff : 0xbf87a8bc
buff+10 : 0xbf87a8c6
&buff+10 : 0xbf87aca4
See it live. The math you're doing is incrementing by type, which for &buf is a pointer to array of 100 chars; not a simple char address. Therefore, &buff + 10 (in my sample) says "give me the 10th array of 100 chars from where I am now.". The subsequent write is invoking undefined behavior as a consequence.
Valgrind is your buddy here, btw. It would have caught this in a heartbeat.
Update
May as well fill in the entire gambit while I'm here. This is also wrong in l1_send:
memcpy(&id, &buf, sizeof(id));
// this------^
and the subsequent other areas you're using it in that function. You're taking the address of a parameter pointer, not the value within it. I'm confident you need buf there as well.

Answer 2

Try this:
memcpy(buf, &sender_id, sizeof(sender_id));
memcpy(buf + sizeof(sender_id), &packet_size, sizeof(packet_size));
memcpy(buf + sizeof(sender_id) + sizeof(packet_size), msg, strlen(msg));
To help you understand what is wrong with your code, you can read this.
Related: Pointer math vs. Array index