Socket getting text string as hex array, multiple socket call in each other's event

Question

Client:

var iosocket = io.connect();
iosocket.on('connect', function () {
    iosocket.on('message', function(message) {
    console.log(message)
    });
});

$('#input').keypress(function(event) {
    if(event.which == 13) {
        event.preventDefault();
        iosocket.send($('#input').val());
    }
});

server: (ingnore require part)

var socket = require('socket.io');
conn = function (socket) {
    console.log("connnect");
    socket.on('disconnect', function (socket) {
    console.log("disconnect");
    });  

socket.on('message', function (data) {
    var socket1 = new net.Socket();
    socket1.connect (PORT, HOST, function() {
    socket1.write(data);
    socket1.end();
    });

    socket1.on('data', function(data) {
    socket.broadcast.emit('message', data);
    socket.emit('message',data);
    });

    socket1.on('error', function(exception){
    console.log('Exception:');
    console.log(exception);
    });

    socket1.on('drain', function() {
    console.log("socket1 drain!");
    });

    socket1.on('timeout', function() {
    console.log("socket1 timeout!");
    });

    socket1.on('close', function() {
    console.log('Socket1 closed');
    });
});
}
var io = socket.listen(server, { log: false });
io.sockets.on('connection', conn );

Problem1(solved but needs feedback): The response (mkessage variable) I was getting in client was in hex array format, I tried setencoding and tostring method but it did not solve the problem. The following code converted the hex array in readable string.

byte = '';
for (var i=0; i < data.length; i++) {
byte += String.fromCharCode( parseInt(data[i], 16).toString(16) );
}

Problem 2 : The tcp socket socket1 is created for every time and it is taking huge time to do this. how do I create and use socket1 so that it don't get closed after every write?
Does the status of other guy listening at PORT HOST force it to close?

Answer 1

Have you tried to explicitly set encoding of your socket?

socket.on('message', function (msg) {
    var socket1 = new net.Socket();
    socket1.setEncoding('utf8'); //< explicitly request utf8
    socket1.connect (PORT, HOST, function() {
        socket1.write(msg);
        socket1.end();
    });

See NodeJS documentation for more details.

If this does not help, could you share the code of TCP server listening at HOST:PORT (see socket1 initialization)?

Edit

As mentioned in the comment(s) below: unless you call setEncoding() on your socket, 'data' callback receives Buffer object. You should convert it to String for the broadcast.

socket1.on('data', function(data) {
    socket.broadcast.emit('message', data.toString());
});