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Handle incoming sockets in another thread

I'm trying to do something potentially stupid, but I reckon it's a good idea, so bear with me. I tried to implement it, but I hit an awkward issue with sockets closing between threads - so I want some fresh eyes on the case.
Scenario
I want to write an object from a Client to a Server via sockets. There may be more than one Client communicating with the Server concurrently.
The object, a Message, is handled by the Server through its handling mechanisms. It is proposed that instead of the Server's main thread looking out for new incoming connections, a Listener thread is set up. Once it spots an incoming connection, it alerts the Server, storing the socket in a queue without receiving the data, so it can go back to listening quickly.
In its own time, the Server picks up the waiting socket, spawns a new thread, reads the Message, and closes the socket.
The code
Here's my first thoughts on how this should be implemented. There is a fundamental flaw in it which I will explain below.
Ignore the use of public fields - I'm just trying to make the code short for you guys
public class Server {
public boolean messageWaiting = false;
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Server().run();
}
public void run() {
Listener l = new Listener();
l.listen(this);
try {
while (true) {
System.out.println("I'm happily doing my business!");
Thread.sleep(1000);
if (messageWaiting) {
acceptMessages(l);
}
}
} catch (InterruptedException die) {}
}
private void acceptMessages(Listener l) {
while (!l.waiting.isEmpty()) {
try (
Socket client = l.waiting.poll();
ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(client.getInputStream())
) {
// Handle messages in new threads! (or a thread pool)
new Thread() {
public void run() {
try {
System.out.println(ois.readObject());
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}.start();
} catch (Exception ex) {
// Oh no! The socket has already been closed!
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
public class Listener {
public ConcurrentLinkedQueue<Socket> waiting = new ConcurrentLinkedQueue<>();
public void listen(final Server callback) {
new Thread() {
public void run() {
try (ServerSocket rxSock = new ServerSocket(7500)) {
while (!isInterrupted()) {
try (Socket client = rxSock.accept()) {
// Once a new socket arrives, add it to the waiting queue
waiting.add(client);
// Alert the server
callback.messageWaiting = true;
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}.start();
}
}
public class Client {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try (
Socket txSock = new Socket(InetAddress.getLoopbackAddress(), 7500);
ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(txSock.getOutputStream())
) {
oos.writeObject("This is a Message, trust me.");
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
What's wrong with this?
This:
I'm happily doing my business!
I'm happily doing my business!
java.net.SocketException: Socket is closed
at java.net.Socket.getInputStream(Unknown Source)
at Server.acceptMessages(Server.java:30)
at Server.run(Server.java:20)
at Server.main(Server.java:9)
This is because the Java 7 try blocks I'm using close the sockets once they're finished. So why don't I do this manually? Try yourself - you end up with a warning saying you're only ever going to call close() on a null object!
So, how do I avoid the whole issue of my incoming socket being closed before the Server thread picks up on it? Or is this a bad idea anyway and I should do something else?

Your statement in Listener
try (Socket client = rxSock.accept()) { ...
Is a try-with-resources for the client socket. As soon as you add it to the queue and exit the try block, the socket gets auto-closed.

Java Stop Server Thread

the following code is server code in my app:
private int serverPort;
private Thread serverThread = null;
public void networkListen(int port){
serverPort = port;
if (serverThread == null){
Runnable serverRunnable = new ServerRunnable();
serverThread = new Thread(serverRunnable);
serverThread.start();
} else {
}
}
public class ServerRunnable implements Runnable {
public void run(){
try {
//networkConnected = false;
//netMessage = "Listening for Connection";
//networkMessage = new NetworkMessage(networkConnected, netMessage);
//setChanged();
//notifyObservers(networkMessage);
ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(serverPort, backlog);
commSocket = serverSocket.accept();
serverSocket.close();
serverSocket = null;
//networkConnected = true;
//netMessage = "Connected: " + commSocket.getInetAddress().getHostAddress() + ":" +
//commSocket.getPort();
//networkMessage = new NetworkMessage(networkConnected, netMessage);
//setChanged();
//notifyObservers(networkMessage);
} catch (IOException e){
//networkConnected = false;
//netMessage = "ServerRunnable Network Unavailable";
//System.out.println(e.getMessage());
//networkMessage = new NetworkMessage(networkConnected, netMessage);
//setChanged();
//notifyObservers(networkMessage);
}
}
}
The code sort of works i.e. if im attempting a straight connection both ends communicate and update.
The issue is while im listening for a connection if i want to quit listening then the server thread continues running and causes problems.
i know i should not use .stop() on a thread so i was wondering what the solution would look like with this in mind?
EDIT: commented out unneeded code.

Close the server socket from an external thread. As per the documentation on Serversocket.close() the blocking accept will throw a SocketException and you can shutdown your thread.

After initializing your ServerSocket, use setSoTimeout. Put the accept in a loop, catching the timeouts. Break from the loop and return from run based on whether you want to continue or not.

Java: Multithreading & UDP Socket Programming

I am new to multithreading & socket programming in Java. I would like to know what is the best way to implement 2 threads - one for receiving a socket and one for sending a socket. If what I am trying to do sounds absurd, pls let me know why! The code is largely inspired from Sun's tutorials online.I want to use Multicast sockets so that I can work with a multicast group.
class Server extends Thread
{
static protected MulticastSocket socket = null;
protected BufferedReader in = null;
public InetAddress group;
private static class Receive implements Runnable
{
public void run()
{
try
{
byte[] buf = new byte[256];
DatagramPacket pkt = new DatagramPacket(buf,buf.length);
socket.receive(pkt);
String received = new String(pkt.getData(),0,pkt.getLength());
System.out.println("From server#" + received);
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
catch (IOException e)
{
System.out.println("Error:"+e);
}
catch (InterruptedException e)
{
System.out.println("Error:"+e);
}
}
}
public Server() throws IOException
{
super("server");
socket = new MulticastSocket(4446);
group = InetAddress.getByName("239.231.12.3");
socket.joinGroup(group);
}
public void run()
{
while(1>0)
{
try
{
byte[] buf = new byte[256];
DatagramPacket pkt = new DatagramPacket(buf,buf.length);
//String msg = reader.readLine();
String pid = ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getName();
buf = pid.getBytes();
pkt = new DatagramPacket(buf,buf.length,group,4446);
socket.send(pkt);
Thread t = new Thread(new Receive());
t.start();
while(t.isAlive())
{
t.join(1000);
}
sleep(1);
}
catch (IOException e)
{
System.out.println("Error:"+e);
}
catch (InterruptedException e)
{
System.out.println("Error:"+e);
}
}
//socket.close();
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
{
new Server().start();
//System.out.println("Hello");
}
}

First thing is first: your classes should start with a capital letter per the Java Naming Conventions:
Class names should be nouns, in mixed case with the first letter of
each internal word capitalized. Try to
keep your class names simple and
descriptive. Use whole words-avoid
acronyms and abbreviations (unless the
abbreviation is much more widely used
than the long form, such as URL or
HTML).
Second:
Try to break down the code into coherent sections and organize them around some common feature that you're dealing with... perhaps around the functionality or the model you're programming.
The (basic) model for the server is that the only thing it does is receive socket connections... the server relies on a handler to handle those connections and that's it. If you try to build that model it would look something like this:
class Server{
private final ServerSocket serverSocket;
private final ExecutorService pool;
public Server(int port, int poolSize) throws IOException {
serverSocket = new ServerSocket(port);
pool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(poolSize);
}
public void serve() {
try {
while(true) {
pool.execute(new Handler(serverSocket.accept()));
}
} catch (IOException ex) {
pool.shutdown();
}
}
}
class Handler implements Runnable {
private final Socket socket;
Handler(Socket socket) { this.socket = socket; }
public void run() {
// receive the datagram packets
}
}
Third: I would recommend that you look at some existing examples.
Multi-threaded Client/Server Applications:
http://www.ase.md/~aursu/ClientServerThreads.html
Doug Lea:
http://www.developer.com/java/ent/article.php/3645111/Java-5s-BlockingQueue.htm (thanks to John)
http://gee.cs.oswego.edu/dl/cpj/index.html (still can't find the exact example, but it's there somewhere... if you feel brave look over his allcode.java file).
Concurrency in Practice examples:
http://www.javaconcurrencyinpractice.com/listings.html
Java Concurrency Tutorials:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/essential/concurrency/
Updated per comments:
OK Ravi, there are some big issues with your code and some minor issues with it:
I assume that the Receive class is your client... you should pull that out as a separate program (with its own main class) and run your server and multiple clients at the same time. Spawning a new "client thread" from your server for every new UDP package you send is a disturbing idea (big issue).
When you make your client application, you should make it run the receiving code in its own while loop (minor issue), e.g.:
public class Client extends Thread
{
public Client(/*..*/)
{
// initialize your client
}
public void run()
{
while(true)
{
// receive UDP packets
// process the UDP packets
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
{
// start your client
new Client().start();
}
}
You should only need just one thread per client and one thread per server (you technically don't even a separate thread in there since main has its own thread), so you might not find the ExecutorService that useful.
Otherwise your approach is correct... but I would still recommend that you check out some of examples.

Wanting to create threads in an application is not absurd! You won't need exactly 2 threads, but I think you're talking about 2 classes that implement the Runnable interface.
The threading API has gotten better since Java 1.5 and you don't need to mess with java.lang.Thread anymore. You can simply create a java.util.concurrent.Executor and submit Runnable instances to it.
The book Java Concurrency in Practice uses that exact problem - creating a threaded socket server - and walks through several iterations of the code to show the best way to do it. Check out the free sample chapter, which is great. I won't copy/paste the code here, but look specifically at listing 6.8.

It's a good thing Eclipse's history works even for a day back :) Thanks to that, I am able to give both Ravi a working example and Lirik his answer on leakage.
Let me first start of by stating that I have no clue what is causing this leak, but if I leave it long enough, it will fail on a OutOfMemoryError.
Second, I left the working code commented out for Ravi for a working basic example of my UDP server. The timeout was there to test how long my firewall would kill the receivers end (30 seconds). Just remove anything with the pool, and you're good to go.
So here is, a working but leaking version of my example threaded UDP server.
public class TestServer {
private static Integer TIMEOUT = 30;
private final static int MAX_BUFFER_SIZE = 8192;
private final static int MAX_LISTENER_THREADS = 5;
private final static SimpleDateFormat DateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-dd-MM HH:mm:ss.SSSZ");
private int mPort;
private DatagramSocket mSocket;
// You can remove this for a working version
private ExecutorService mPool;
public TestServer(int port) {
mPort = port;
try {
mSocket = new DatagramSocket(mPort);
mSocket.setReceiveBufferSize(MAX_BUFFER_SIZE);
mSocket.setSendBufferSize(MAX_BUFFER_SIZE);
mSocket.setSoTimeout(0);
// You can uncomment this for a working version
//for (int i = 0; i < MAX_LISTENER_THREADS; i++) {
// new Thread(new Listener(mSocket)).start();
//}
// You can remove this for a working version
mPool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(MAX_LISTENER_THREADS);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
// You can remove this for a working version
public void start() {
try {
try {
while (true) {
mPool.execute(new Listener(mSocket));
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
} finally {
mPool.shutdown();
}
}
private class Listener implements Runnable {
private final DatagramSocket socket;
public Listener(DatagramSocket serverSocket) {
socket = serverSocket;
}
private String readLn(DatagramPacket packet) throws IOException {
socket.receive(packet);
return new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new ByteArrayInputStream(packet.getData())), MAX_BUFFER_SIZE).readLine();
}
private void writeLn(DatagramPacket packet, String string) throws IOException {
packet.setData(string.concat("\r\n").getBytes());
socket.send(packet);
}
#Override
public void run() {
DatagramPacket packet = new DatagramPacket(new byte[MAX_BUFFER_SIZE], MAX_BUFFER_SIZE);
String s;
while (true) {
try {
packet = new DatagramPacket(new byte[MAX_BUFFER_SIZE], MAX_BUFFER_SIZE);
s = readLn(packet);
System.out.println(DateFormat.format(new Date()) + " Received: " + s);
Thread.sleep(TIMEOUT * 1000);
writeLn(packet, s);
System.out.println(DateFormat.format(new Date()) + " Sent: " + s);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
if (args.length == 1) {
try {
TIMEOUT = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
} catch (Exception e) {
TIMEOUT = 30;
}
}
System.out.println(DateFormat.format(new Date()) + " Timeout: " + TIMEOUT);
//new TestServer(4444);
new TestServer(4444).start();
}
}
btw. #Lirik, I witnessed this behavior first in Eclipse, after which I tested it from the command line. And again, I have NO clue what is causing it ;) sorry...

2 threads is fine. One reader another writer. Remember that with UDP you should not spawn new handler threads (unless what you're doing takes a long time), I recommend throwing the incoming messages into a processing Queue. The same for the send, have a send thread that blocks on an incoming Queue for UDP send.

Using Threads to Handle Sockets

I am working on a java program that is essentially a chat room. This is an assignment for class so no code please, I am just having some issues determining the most feasible way to handle what I need to do. I have a server program already setup for a single client using threads to get the data input stream and a thread to handle sending on the data output stream. What I need to do now is create a new thread for each incoming request.
My thought is to create a linked list to contain either the client sockets, or possibly the thread. Where I am stumbling is figuring out how to handle sending the messages out to all the clients. If I have a thread for each incoming message how can I then turn around and send that out to each client socket.
I'm thinking that if I had a linkedlist of the clientsockets I could then traverse the list and send it out to each one, but then I would have to create a dataoutputstream each time. Could I create a linkedlist of dataoutputstreams? Sorry if it sounds like I'm rambling but I don't want to just start coding this, it could get messy without a good plan. Thanks!
EDIT
I decided to post the code I have so far. I haven't had a chance to test it yet so any comments would be great. Thanks!
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.DataOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue;
import java.util.concurrent.LinkedBlockingQueue;
public class prog4_server {
// A Queue of Strings used to hold out bound Messages
// It blocks till on is available
static BlockingQueue<String> outboundMessages = new LinkedBlockingQueue<String>();
// A linked list of data output streams
// to all the clients
static LinkedList<DataOutputStream> outputstreams;
// public variables to track the number of clients
// and the state of the server
static Boolean serverstate = true;
static int clients = 0;
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException{
//create a server socket and a clientSocket
ServerSocket serverSocket = null;
try {
serverSocket = new ServerSocket(6789);
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("Could not listen on port: 6789");
System.exit(-1);
}// try{...}catch(IOException e){...}
Socket clientSocket;
// start the output thread which waits for elements
// in the message queue
OutputThread out = new OutputThread();
out.start();
while(serverstate){
try {
// wait and accept a new client
// pass the socket to a new Input Thread
clientSocket = serverSocket.accept();
DataOutputStream ServerOut = new DataOutputStream(clientSocket.getOutputStream());
InputThread in = new InputThread(clientSocket, clients);
in.start();
outputstreams.add(ServerOut);
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("Accept failed: 6789");
System.exit(-1);
}// try{...}catch{..}
// increment the number of clients and report
clients = clients++;
System.out.println("Client #" + clients + "Accepted");
}//while(serverstate){...
}//public static void main
public static class OutputThread extends Thread {
//OutputThread Class Constructor
OutputThread() {
}//OutputThread(...){...
public void run() {
//string variable to contain the message
String msg = null;
while(!this.interrupted()) {
try {
msg = outboundMessages.take();
for(int i=0;i<outputstreams.size();i++){
outputstreams.get(i).writeBytes(msg + '\n');
}// for(...){...
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println(e);
} catch (InterruptedException e){
System.out.println(e);
}//try{...}catch{...}
}//while(...){
}//public void run(){...
}// public OutputThread(){...
public static class InputThread extends Thread {
Boolean threadstate = true;
BufferedReader ServerIn;
String user;
int threadID;
//SocketThread Class Constructor
InputThread(Socket clientSocket, int ID) {
threadID = ID;
try{
ServerIn = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(clientSocket.getInputStream()));
user = ServerIn.readLine();
}
catch(IOException e){
System.out.println(e);
}
}// InputThread(...){...
public void run() {
String msg = null;
while (threadstate) {
try {
msg = ServerIn.readLine();
if(msg.equals("EXITEXIT")){
// if the client is exiting close the thread
// close the output stream with the same ID
// and decrement the number of clients
threadstate = false;
outputstreams.get(threadID).close();
outputstreams.remove(threadID);
clients = clients--;
if(clients == 0){
// if the number of clients has dropped to zero
// close the server
serverstate = false;
ServerIn.close();
}// if(clients == 0){...
}else{
// add a message to the message queue
outboundMessages.add(user + ": " + msg);
}//if..else...
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println(e);
}// try { ... } catch { ...}
}// while
}// public void run() { ...
}
public static class ServerThread extends Thread {
//public variable declaration
BufferedReader UserIn =
new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
//OutputThread Class Constructor
ServerThread() {
}//OutputThread(...){...
public void run() {
//string variable to contain the message
String msg = null;
try {
//while loop will continue until
//exit command is received
//then send the exit command to all clients
msg = UserIn.readLine();
while (!msg.equals("EXITEXIT")) {
System.out.println("Enter Message: ");
msg = UserIn.readLine();
}//while(...){
outboundMessages.add(msg);
serverstate = false;
UserIn.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println(e);
}//try{...}catch{...}
}//public void run(){...
}// public serverThread(){...
}// public class prog4_server

I have solved this problem in the past by defining a "MessageHandler" class per client connection, responsible for inbound / outbound message traffic. Internally the handler uses a BlockingQueue implementation onto which outbound messages are placed (by internal worker threads). The I/O sender thread continually attempts to read from the queue (blocking if required) and sends each message retrieved to the client.
Here's some skeleton example code (untested):
/**
* Our Message definition. A message is capable of writing itself to
* a DataOutputStream.
*/
public interface Message {
void writeTo(DataOutputStream daos) throws IOException;
}
/**
* Handler definition. The handler contains two threads: One for sending
* and one for receiving messages. It is initialised with an open socket.
*/
public class MessageHandler {
private final DataOutputStream daos;
private final DataInputStream dais;
private final Thread sender;
private final Thread receiver;
private final BlockingQueue<Message> outboundMessages = new LinkedBlockingQueue<Message>();
public MessageHandler(Socket skt) throws IOException {
this.daos = new DataOutputStream(skt.getOutputStream());
this.dais = new DataInputStream(skt.getInputStream());
// Create sender and receiver threads responsible for performing the I/O.
this.sender = new Thread(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
while (!Thread.interrupted()) {
Message msg = outboundMessages.take(); // Will block until a message is available.
try {
msg.writeTo(daos);
} catch(IOException ex) {
// TODO: Handle exception
}
}
}
}, String.format("SenderThread-%s", skt.getRemoteSocketAddress()));
this.receiver = new Thread(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
// TODO: Read from DataInputStream and create inbound message.
}
}, String.format("ReceiverThread-%s", skt.getRemoteSocketAddress()));
sender.start();
receiver.start();
}
/**
* Submits a message to the outbound queue, ready for sending.
*/
public void sendOutboundMessage(Message msg) {
outboundMessages.add(msg);
}
public void destroy() {
// TODO: Interrupt and join with threads. Close streams and socket.
}
}
Note that Nikolai is correct in that blocking I/O using 1 (or 2) threads per connection is not a scalable solution and typically applications might be written using Java NIO to get round this. However, in reality unless you're writing an enterprise server which thousands of clients connect to simultaneously then this isn't really an issue. Writing bug-free scalable applications using Java NIO is difficult and certainly not something I'd recommend.

Java: Multiple threads vs. sockets

I've written a simple application in Java where there are two nodes, each with a ServerSocket open to a port listening for incoming connections. The nodes run two threads each, sending 1000 messages to the other node through a persistent TCP socket created when sending the first message. However, the nodes do not receive all 1000 messages. One may receive 850 while the other only receives 650. This number tends to stay constant over multiple runs.
The sending code is as follows:
public void SendMsg(String dest, Message myMsg) {
Socket sendsock = null;
PrintWriter printwr = null;
try {
if(printwr == null) {
sendsock = new Socket(dest, Main.rcvport);
printwr = new PrintWriter(sendsock.getOutputStream(), true);
}
String msgtosend = myMsg.msgtype.toString() + "=" + Main.myaddy + "=" + myMsg.content + "\n";
printwr.print(msgtosend);
} catch (UnknownHostException ex) {
System.out.println(ex);
//DO: Terminate or restart
} catch (IOException ex) {
System.out.println(ex);
//DO: Terminate or restart
}
}
Performance seems to improve if I use
buffwr = new BufferedWriter(printwr)
as well and use buffwr.write(...) instead of printwr.print(...), though it doesn't seem to be a complete solution for the data loss. There are no exceptions to show that packets weren't delivered, so according to the sender, they were all sent successfully.
On the receiving end, the accepted connection is treated as follows:
BufferedReader inbuff = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(incoming.getInputStream()));
while(running) {
String rcvedln = inbuff.readLine();
if(rcvedln != null) {
count++;
System.out.println(count);
}
}
Is there an problem with how the readers and writers have been used that could be causing the problem? Thanks.

SendMsg() is creating a new socket every call, so you aren't using a persistent TCP connection. The method isn't closing the socket, either, so you have a lot of open collections. You may be reaching a limit to the number of connections the process can make (the sockets may not be closed when the objects are garbage collected).
Finally, as kd304 pointed out, the Javadoc for PrintWriter states this about the autoFlush parameter of the PrintWriter constructor: "if true, the println, printf, or format methods will flush the output buffer". Your code wasn't calling a method that did a flush.
Try this:
public class MessageSender implements Closeable {
private final Socket socket;
private final PrintWriter writer;
public MessageSender(String dest, int port) {
socket = new Socket(dest, port);
writer = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
}
public void sendMessage(Message message) {
try {
writer.println(message.toString());
} catch (UnknownHostException ex) {
System.out.println(ex);
//DO: Terminate or restart
} catch (IOException ex) {
System.out.println(ex);
//DO: Terminate or restart
}
}
#Override
public void close() throws IOException {
writer.close();
socket.close();
}
Note I modified the code so that sendMessage() calls Message.toString() to get the formatted message. It doesn't seem right for sendMessage() to reference fields in Message in order to format the message. Instead of using toString() you could create a method in Message specifically for this purpose.
Here's the server side code:
public class Server implements Runnable {
private final ServerSocket serverSocket;
private final ExecutorService executor;
private volatile boolean running = true;
public Server(int port, ExecutorService executor) throws IOException {
serverSocket = new ServerSocket(port);
this.executor = executor;
}
#Override
public void run() throws IOExeption {
while (running) {
Socket socket = serverSocket.accept();
executor.execute(new ConnectionHandler(socket));
}
}
public boolean stop(long timeout, TimeUnit unit) {
running = false;
executor.shutdown();
return executor.awaitTermination(timeout, unit);
}
}
You can use Executors to create an ExecutorService to run the tasks. Note that ConnectionHandler needs to close the socket it is given.

Are you closing out the PrintWriter to flush the stream?
} finally {
printwr.close();
sendsock.close();
}

Ah, sorry. I accidentally removed the commenting from the code. It's actually like this:
public void SendMsg(String dest, Message myMsg) {
Socket sendsock = null;
try {
if(printwr == null) {
sendsock = new Socket(dest, Main.rcvport);
printwr = new PrintWriter(sendsock.getOutputStream(), true);
}
String msgtosend = myMsg.msgtype.toString() + "=" + Main.myaddy + "=" + myMsg.content + "\n";
printwr.print(msgtosend);
} catch (UnknownHostException ex) {
System.out.println(ex);
//DO: Terminate or restart
} catch (IOException ex) {
System.out.println(ex);
//DO: Terminate or restart
}
}
printrw is declared and stored outside the function, so once it's set up, there is no need for sendsock or for reinitializing printrw. In the actual application, I'm storing the PrintWriter for every connection in a HashMap and retrieving it at the start of the SendMsg(...) function.
Since the connections are persistent, every time one is accepted, a new thread is lunch that runs a while loop to check it continuously for data. These threads and connections are only closed once the application is terminated. In addition to my previous question, is there a more efficient way of doing this?
Earlier, I'd implemented this code without the "\n" and using println(...) instead and I still had the issue of some messages not being received, so I'm not sure what is causing the problem. The messages are sent like so:
public class SendPortal2 implements Runnable {
String dest = null;
SendPortal2 (String dest) {
this.dest = dest;
}
public void run() {
for(int i=1; i<1000; i+=2) {
Message myMsg = new Message("Message", Main.myaddy + " " + String.valueOf(i));
Main.myCommMgr.SendMsg(dest, myMsg);
}
}
}
There are two such threads running. When I ran the code again just now, one side got 999 packets whereas the other one only got 500, leading me to believe sometimes the data from an entire thread could be blocked out. Is that likely?
Thanks for the replies!

If I put a Thread.sleep(2) inside the for loop where the SendMsg function is called, more messages are received properly, but it's not always 1000. Could it be possible that the system's resources are being hogged by two threads running while loops continuously?