Linux tool to send raw data to a TCP server

I am aware that this is not a direct 'development' question but I need this info to test a development project, so I think someone could've hit similar problem.

I will test a software that r开发者_如何学Cuns a TCP server and according to sent commands replies some answers. I will test the software and do not want to write code if it doesn't work well. So I want to send those commands and test drive the server software.

How can I achieve this with a Linux box?

From bash with dd:

dd if=/dev/zero bs=9000 count=1000 > /dev/tcp/$target_host/$port

or even with cat:

cat < /dev/urandom > /dev/tcp/$target_host/$port

netcat or telnet, i have used both in the past to test simple text based protocols. netcat is more flexible.

Sounds like Expect may be what you want. There are implementations for multiple scripting languages, and you can script and assert the requests/server responses plus appropriate timeouts, error handling etc.