Basic socket server - c++

Question

so what I'm trying to do is understand how sockets work and how to make a simple server for communication between the server and the client application
I tried to accomplish this using AS3 with the project named Red Tamarin (Runs AS3 code on console but it doesn't really matter at the moment)
I managed to create a basic server, It's functionality is basically this:
creates a socket and activates these on it: listen() , accept(). when it accepts, it also adds the new socket received from the accept() to an array of connections.
a for loop that runs according to the length of the connections array and runs receive() on each socket (I didn't call listen() / accept() on those connections, should I?)
My actionscript 3 application connects to the server successfully,
And then for a testing purpose I decided to write() to the server from the client non-stop, just to make sure that the server really is getting the data so I can actually go further into adding more functionality..
But the server doesn't seem to get any further information at all..
It seems to respond only to connection / disconnection, but not really listening between them for any other info..
I know that showing my code would be better, but for now I'd like to know if I'm approaching this correctly, I read about it on the internet and it seems like I am but I came here just to make sure..
Thanks in advance!
EDIT:
I was requested for some of my code, here it is, well the most important parts at least
private var _connections:Array;
private var _socket:Socket;
private var _server:Client;
private var _running:Boolean;
private var _port:uint;
private var _address:String;
public function Server(address:String, port:uint)
{
_connections = [];
_address = address;
_port = port;
_running = false;
_socket = new Socket();
}
public function start():void {
_socket.bind(_port, _address);
_socket.listen(128);
_running = true;
_server = new Client(_socket);
_addClient(_server);
_start();
}
private function _start():void {
while (_running) {
_loop();
}
}
private function _addClient(client:Client):void {
_connections.push(client);
}
public function _loop():void
{
var i:uint;
var selected:Client;
var newconn:Socket;
for (i = 0; i < _connections.length; i++ ) {
selected = _connections[i];
if (selected.hasData()) {
if (selected == _server) {
//accept a new client connection
newconn = _socket.accept();
if (!newconn.valid){
//Invalid.
}
else {
//Add a new client
_addClient(new Client(newconn));
}
} else {
//Read data from clients
selected._socket.receive();
}
}
}
}

Answer 1

Just to answer your listen()/accept() question, you only need to call listen() once when the server is initially set up. Afterwards, you will need to execute accept() for each new client connection you want to make (as accept() will return a socket file descriptor that handles the new client).
After the client is accept()ed, then you will use the socket file descriptor of the client to receive() or send() any data.

Answer 2

look at this example
https://code.google.com/p/spitfire-and-firedrop/source/browse/trunk/socketpolicyd/src/spitfire/SocketPolicyServer.as
in your main loop from what I see in your code you only check if you can read the current socket, you need also to check if you can write to the current socket
also note that everyone has a socket handle, the server and the clients
my guess is you get a bit confused between the Server and Client classes that both wrap a Socket object, try to use only the Socket objects (as in the example above)
and when you understand that then you can go further and abstract/structure bigger classes