Question

I got to implement a chat in my application. Connection to a server is made using sockets. I should register to that server and the server will aknowledge that with a reply.

I have implemented this in a single method where I send the command using a BufferedWriter, and then start reading from the input stream until it tells me there is no more data.

I read properly the server reply. However, I never get the negative value from the second in.read call and thus my method stays blocked in the while loop (in the conditionnal statement where I make that call).

How should this be done with sockets? I usually do that with files or other input streams without problem.

If I should read only the bytes I am supposed to read, does that mean that I either have to:

• Know in advance the length of the server response?
• or make the server send a code to notify it has finished to send its response?

Currently I am doing the following:

private String sendSocketRequest(String request, boolean skipResponse) throws ChatException {
    if (!isConnected()) openConnection();

    try {
        BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(
                                     socket.getOutputStream()), 2048);
        out.append(request);
        out.flush();
        out = null;
    } catch (IOException e) {
        LogHelper.error("Unable to send socket request: " + request, e);
        throw new ChatException("Unable to send socket request: " + request, e);
    }

    try {
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                                     socket.getInputStream()), 2048);
        StringBuffer response = new StringBuffer();
        char[] buffer = new char[2048];
        int charsRead = -1;

// >>>>>>>> This is where it gets blocked <<<<<<<<<

        while ((charsRead = in.read(buffer)) >= 0) {
            if (charsRead > 0) response.append(new String(buffer, 0, charsRead));
        }
        return response.toString();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        LogHelper.error("Unable to read socket response: " + request, e);
        throw new ChatException("Unable to read socket response: " + request, e);
    }
}

Connection to the server is made with the following method:

public synchronized void openConnection() throws ChatException {
    try {
        socket = new Socket(Constants.API_CHAT_SERVER_ADDRESS, Constants.API_CHAT_SERVER_PORT);
        socket.setKeepAlive(true);

        LogHelper.debug("CHAT      >> Connected to the chat server: " + Constants.API_CHAT_SERVER_ADDRESS);
    } catch (UnknownHostException e) {
        LogHelper.error("Unable to open chat connection", e);
        throw new ChatException("Unable to open chat connection", e);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        LogHelper.error("Unable to open chat connection", e);
        throw new ChatException("Unable to open chat connection", e);
    }
}

Answer 1

The amount of data to be sent/received over a socket based connection is protocol dependend and not known to the TCP/IP stack, but only to the application layer.

The protocol used is developer dependend … 😉 so coming to your questions:

If I should read only the bytes I am supposed to read, does that mean that I either have to:

• Know in advance the length of the server response?

Yes, this is one possibility.

• or make the server send a code to notify it has finished to send its response?

Also yes, as this is another possibility. Common markers are \n or \r\n. The NUL/'\0' character also might make sense.

A third option is to prefix each data chunk with a constant number of bytes describing the amount of bytes to come.