Socket buffered read yields corrupt data

Question

While trying to read from a socket, the data gets corrupted:
First, from telnet, I send the length of the data: 12<enter>
Then I send the data: this is some data
The server only displays part of the data:
�� = some unprintable character (I can't even copy it from the console)
examples:
SEND 11<enter>
SEND this is a test for
System.out.println yields: "this is &#8234;������"
SEND 11<enter>
SEND this is a test for socket data
System.out.println yields: "this is &#8234;������"
SEND 13<enter>
SEND this is a test for socket data
System.out.println yields: "this is &#8234;����������"
SEND 13<enter>
SEND this is a test for socket data, yes, for sockets
System.out.println yields: "this is &#8234;����������"
SEND 20<enter>
SEND this is a test for socket data, yes, for sockets
System.out.println yields: "this is ������������������������"
s_out = new PrintWriter(s_socket.getOutputStream(), true);
s_in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(s_socket.getInputStream()));
AProtocol proto = new AProtocol();
int data_length = 0;
while (proto.state != STATUS_GOODBYE){
     switch (proto.state) {
     case STATUS_WAITING_LENGTH :
          inputLine = s_in.readLine();
          s_out.println(proto.processInput(inputLine));
          if (proto.state == STATUS_WAITING_DATA){
               data_length = Integer.parseInt(inputLine.trim());     
          break;
                              case STATUS_WAITING_DATA :
          inarray = new char[data_length];
          if ((count = s_in.read(inarray,0,data_length)) >= 0){
               inputLine = String.valueOf(inarray);
               proto.processInput(inputLine);
               if (proto.state == STATUS_WAITING_LENGTH){
                    System.out.println("*" + inputLine + "*");
          break;
}

Answer 1

It looks like you're writing bytes, but reading them as Java characters (e.g., Unicode).