Question

I want to recognize end of data stream in Java Sockets. When I run the code below, it just stuck and keeps running (it stucks at value 10).

I also want the program to download binary files, but the last byte is always distinct, so I don’t know how to stop the while (pragmatically).

String host = "example.com";
String path = "/";
Socket connection = new Socket(host, 80);

PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(connection.getOutputStream());
  out.write("GET "+ path +" HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: "+ host +"\r\n\r\n");
out.flush();

int dataBuffer;
while ((dataBuffer = connection.getInputStream().read()) != -1)
  System.out.println(dataBuffer);

out.close();

Thanks for any hints.

Answer 1

1. You should use existing libraries for HTTP. See here.
2. Your code works as expected. The server doesn’t close the connection, and dataBuffer never becomes -1. This happens because connections are kept alive in HTTP 1.1 by default. Use HTTP 1.0, or put Connection: close header in your request.

For example:

out.write("GET "+ path +" HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: "+ host +"\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n");
out.flush();

int dataBuffer;
while ((dataBuffer = connection.getInputStream().read()) != -1) 
   System.out.print((char)dataBuffer);

out.close();