Home/ Questions/Q 9144603
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-17T10:18:35+00:00

I’ve written a socket client server program in c++. The program works perfectly and

  • 0

I’ve written a socket client server program in c++. The program works perfectly and what I want to do now is to check periodically whether the connected clients are available. I know that it can be done using a while(true) loop in the server program. But it will use more cpu resources. Is there any other efficient way to check the availability of the clients? I’ve heard something called heartbeat. Does that help me? Is there any other way to do this?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    By definition, is a client is “connected” it is “available” otherwise it will not be “connected”.
    If you need a persistent connection just use a transport protocol that provides for persistence (like TCP) and let TCP to do its job. Its own keep-alive and retransmission timers are already set up to satisfy network characteristics (and if they are not, this is a system problem, not something a specific application should manage alone).
    Just send and receive data and manage the connection errors that eventually arise if one of the party goes away or becomes unreachable.

    In any case:

    • Don’t do dumb infinite loops sending/receiving empy messages just to test: there are billions on node in the internet: if anyone will behave as such, the entire internet will be fullfilled by “ping pong-s”. Bendwidth has a cost. Much more than CPU and memory. Don’t waste it.

    • Don’t attempt to timeout yourself o recover a missing packet. There are hundredth of good reason you can even never imagine why a network can decide to reroute or discard a packet. Let TCP and IP to play their role consistently. All application trying to fix themselves netwotking issues do nothing more to adding mess to network managers.

    • In very short terms: if a socket is opened and is not in error, than the computer is connected. If it is in error, just close it and attempt to reopen it (and wait for the transport protocol timeouts. It ca be up to minutes, but don’t try to escape from networking protocol rules: you are mot alone in the network, and it’s not you who can make those rules).

    • 0