Network Packet Interpretation problem

[pyromania]

Send a 3 character packet, Client Code Snip:
String alias = "Bob";
byte[] buf = alias.getBytes();
DatagramPacket packet = new DatagramPacket(buf, buf.length, address, 4445);


Server Code Snip:
byte[] buf = new byte[256];
// receive request
DatagramPacket packet = new DatagramPacket(buf, buf.length);
incoming.receive(packet);
String received = new String(packet.getData());

The problem is that received (String) ends up containing "Bob" plus many characters of blank space. I just want valid characters in String received, which would be just "Bob" in this case. Should I add a character to indicate the end of the String? I'm hoping there is an easier, more efficient way.

[ray326]

Have you tried using getLength() on the incoming packet to limit the number of bytes copied out to the String?

[pyromania]

Thanks a lot, that worked. I'm very new to networking in java.