PHP sockets/daemon problem

I'm trying to write a simple PHP script that communicates with a daemon running on the same server. Basically, the daemon just accepts an integer and returns an integer: [josh@jlevine-research josh]$ telnet 127.0.0.1 60324 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to localhost. Escape character is '^]'. 9 25Connection closed by foreign host. When I try doing this with PHP, however, the output is 2[]5 (where [] == a small square symbol). Here is the script: <?php $fp = fsockopen("127.0.0.1", 60324, $errno, $errstr); if (!$fp) { echo "ERROR: $errno - $errstr<br>\n"; } else { socket_set_blocking ($fp, 1); socket_set_timeout($fp, 200); fwrite($fp,"9\n"); $return = fread($fp,4); echo $return; fclose($fp); } ?> I've tried various string format and type-casting functions with no results (usually just returns nothing after formatted). Any ideas? Thanks in advance, Josh Levine