I'm no expert at sockets, but have you looked at the way Net::EasyTCP sends data? It just uses a hash to send complex objects. Maybe you can gleam some clues. 
#Send and receive a simple string 
$client->send("HELLO THERE") || die "ERROR SENDING: $@\n";
$reply = $client->receive() || die "ERROR RECEIVING: $@\n";
print "$reply\n";

#Send and receive complex objects/strings/arrays/hashes by reference 
#%hash = ("to be or" => "not to be" , "just another" => "perl hacker")
+; 
#$client->send(\%hash) || die "ERROR SENDING: $@\n"; 
#$reply = $client->receive() || die "ERROR RECEIVING: $@\n"; 
#foreach (keys %{$reply}) { 
#print "Received key: $_ = $reply->{$_}\n"; 
#} 

#Send and receive large binary data 
#for (1..4096) { 
#for (0..255) { 
#$largedata .= chr($_); 
#} 
#} 
#$client->send($largedata) || die "ERROR SENDING: $@\n"; 
#$reply = $client->receive() || die "ERROR RECEIVING: $@\n"; 

#$client->close();

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In reply to Re: Choosing a client/server protocol by zentara
in thread Choosing a client/server protocol by Coruscate

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