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Java cannot read and write to socket at the same time

I am trying to build a simple multi client chat application using java sockets. The way I have gone about doing this is by having a client class that connects to a server class that waits for clients to connect and creates a new thread to deal with that client(Where the socket connection is read and written to). The client also reads from and writes to the socket connection to this thread. However, when the client wrote to the output stream of the socket, the server would not respond. A similar question here was posted:
Can you write to a sockets input and output stream at the same time?
One of the answers here says that you can read and write to a socket at the same time as long as reading from the socket is done on a separate thread.
Here is my client application:
public class Client {
Socket socket;
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Client();
}
public Client() {
try {
socket = new Socket("localhost", 4444);
new Thread() {
#Override
public void run() { //read from the input stream
try(
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
) {
String line;
while( (line = in.readLine()) != null ) {
System.out.println("Server said: " + line);
}
} catch(IOException e) {
}
}
}.start();
//write to output stream
try(
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream()));
Scanner userInput = new Scanner(System.in);
){
System.out.println("Enter Something: ");
if(userInput.hasNextLine()) {
out.println(userInput.nextLine());
}
} catch (IOException e) {
}
} catch(IOException e) {
}
}
}
And my server application:
public class Server {
ServerSocket ss;
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Server();
}
public Server() {
System.out.println("Server Running...");
try {
ss = new ServerSocket(4444);
while(true) {
Socket socket = ss.accept();
new Thread() { //create new thread connection to client
#Override
public void run() {
new Thread() { //thread that reads inputstream
#Override
public void run() {
try(
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
) {
String line;
while( (line = in.readLine()) != null ) {
System.out.println("Client said: " + line);
//The problem seems to lie here.
}
} catch(IOException e) {
}
}
}.start();
//write to outputstream
try (
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream()));
) {
String sendToClient = "Hey, my name is Server007 B)";
out.println(sendToClient);
} catch(IOException e) {
}
}
}.start();
}
} catch (IOException e) {}
}
}
I will run the server, then run the client, on the client side the output is
Server said: Hey, my name is Server007
Enter something:
Hello! <- enter anything
but the server does not print 'Client said: Hello!' like I expected it to. I hope I made my problem clear enough, thanks.

Ok, so I figured it out, I will answer my own question in case anyone makes the same mistake. The PrintWriter constructor should be this:
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
Not this:
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream()));
Alternatively, I could have done this:
BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream()));
I must have just gotten confused between BufferedWriter and PrintWriter :P

Application Hangs over the socket, Unable to read client data at server side

I am trying to implement a client server socket connection where i am passing commands like ls/pwd over the GUI and I use an url(localhost) to establish the server connection at the port. Although i am able to establish a connection with client ,the code does not proceed beyond the Client Connection accepted state. I.e. it does not read the input at the server end which was sent by the client over the socket. Below are my three classes, Mainserver, ClientHandler(this handles the thread connections for the server)and the Client.
This is the Client Action button performed code:
private void jButton1ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEventevt) {
command = jTextField1.getText();
String url = jTextField3.getText();
try {
System.out.println("Before socket connection");
Socket socket = new Socket(url, 9002);
System.out.println("After socket connection");
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
System.out.println("After Buffered readers");
System.out.println("After getting streams");
if (socket != null) {
try {
int x = Integer.parseInt(command);
flag = 1;
} catch (Exception e) {
flag = 0;
}
if (flag == 0) {
String[] cmd = {"/bin/sh", "-c", command};
System.out.println("the value of command in GUI class is " + Arrays.toString(cmd));
try {
String commd = Arrays.toString(cmd);
System.out.println(commd);
out.write(commd);
input = in.readLine();
}
catch (IOException ex1)
{
Logger.getLogger(TestGUI.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex1);
}
jTextField2.setText(input.toString());
}
}
}//try end of the first one
catch (IOException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(TestGUI.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
}
The server class:
public class ServerMain {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, InterruptedException {
int number, temp;
try {
ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(9002);
System.out.println("server has been started in the server");
System.out.println("Server is waiting connection at" + InetAddress.getLocalHost().getCanonicalHostName() + "port" + serverSocket.getLocalPort());
while (true) {
Socket socket = serverSocket.accept();
System.out.println("Client Connection Accepted");
//pass on handling on this client to a thread
(new ClientHandler(socket)).start();
}
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println("Server already in use");
System.exit(-1);
}
}
}
The client Handler for the Server:
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
/*
* To change this license header, choose License Headers in Project Properties.
* To change this template file, choose Tools | Templates
* and open the template in the editor.
*/
/**
*
* #author ameerah
*/
public class ClientHandler extends Thread {
private static int BUFSIZE = 1024;
private StringBuffer result;
ServerSocket serverSocket;
String serverText;
StringBuffer output = new StringBuffer();
private Object serversocket;
public Socket getSock() {
return sock;
}
public void setSock(Socket sock) {
this.sock = sock;
}
Socket sock;
public ClientHandler(Socket sock) {
this.sock = sock;
}
#Override
public void run() {
PrintWriter outWriter = null;
try {
BufferedReader myInput = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(sock.getInputStream()));
outWriter = new PrintWriter(sock.getOutputStream());
System.out.println(
"before accepting the command in server");
String inputLine;
while ((inputLine = myInput.readLine()) != null) //String command = myInput.readLine();
{
System.out.println(inputLine);
String result = "";
try {
result = executeCommand(inputLine);
} catch (IOException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(ClientHandler.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(ClientHandler.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
}
System.out.println(result);
outWriter.write(result);
}
} catch (IOException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(ClientHandler.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} finally {
outWriter.close();
}
}
public String executeCommand(String cmd)
throws IOException, InterruptedException {
try {
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd);
p.waitFor();
BufferedReader reader
= new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
System.out.println("Inside the execute method");
String line = "";
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
output.append(line + "\n");
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return output.toString();
}
}
I have been at it for some time, and tried using different streams such as ObjectInputStream, ObjectOutputStream, but the code hangs each time. I cannot see at this point where Im going wrong :( I've searched in several forums but I do not still get an idea where Im going wrong here.Would appreciate any help.!
Best Regards

It was the readLine() which was expecting '\n' at the end. Therefore once i appended '\n' at the end and added out.flush() it was able to read and not keep hanging waiting for more inputs, and now the application is working.
Thank you very much for your helpful suggestions. The out.flush() advice proved to be very helpful.

Few tips to isolate the problem.
Check the value of command and catch Exception stack trace.
After out.write(commd); : add one more line out.flush(); After flush, server will get the data from client. Same is the case with outWriter. flush() should be called on outWriter after writing the data.

You are looking for an end of line to end your input loop but you are using write.
Change your send data statements to use println.
Client:
out.println(commd);
Server:
outWriter.println(result);

read from remote server and write to remote server continiously

I want my clients to continuously read/write to a log file at a remote server.
The way I am doing it is by passing the output of tail -f /root/log.txt from my remote server to my clients.
There are 2 problems I faced
My Server is executing the command but my client is not receiving the output.
Only one client can connect to the server even though I used threading
Client.java
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
public class Client
{
Socket sock;
String server = "XXX.XXX.XX.XX";
int port = 5550;
String filename = "/root/log.txt";
String command = "tail -f "+filename+"\n";
public static void main(String[] args)
{
new Client();
}
public Client()
{
openSocket();
try
{
// write to socket
BufferedWriter wr = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(sock.getOutputStream()));
wr.write(command);
wr.flush();
// read from socket
BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(sock.getInputStream()));
String str;
while ((str = rd.readLine()) != null)
{
System.out.println(str);
}
rd.close();
}
catch (IOException e)
{
System.err.println(e);
}
}
private void openSocket()
{
// open a socket and connect with a timeout limit
try
{
InetAddress addr = InetAddress.getByName(server);
SocketAddress sockaddr = new InetSocketAddress(addr, port);
sock = new Socket();
// this method will block for the defined number of milliseconds
int timeout = 2000;
sock.connect(sockaddr, timeout);
}
catch (UnknownHostException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
catch (SocketTimeoutException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
catch (IOException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Server.java
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;
public class Server {
private int portNo = 0;
private Socket socket = null;
public Server(int portNo) {
this.portNo = portNo;
Thread t = new Thread(new acceptClient());
t.start();
}
class acceptClient implements Runnable {
public void run() {
//while(true) {
try {
ServerSocket sSocket = new ServerSocket(portNo);
socket = sSocket.accept();
System.out.println("A client has connected!");
BufferedWriter wr = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream()));
BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
System.out.println(rd.readLine());
rd.close();
Process p = null;
p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("tail -f /root/log.txt");
BufferedReader rd2 = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
String s = null;
while ((s = rd2.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(s);
wr.write(s);
}
rd2.close();
wr.close();
/*try {
p.waitFor();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}*/
// /sSocket.close();
} catch(IOException exception) {
System.out.println("Error: " + exception);
}
//}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
int portNo = 5550;
new Server(portNo);
}
}

My Server is executing the command but my client is not receiving the output.
That's because, your command tail -f is a never ending command (if I am not wrong).
Hence rd2.readLine() will never return null in Server.java.
Which means your while loop will never exit.
Which means, wr.write(s) will keep writing to the stream, but doesn't get a
chance to flush() or close() it.
Hence, the output doesn't reach
the client.
To Fix: Just add flush() below your write().
wr.write(s);
wr.flush();
// While loop close.
Only one client can connect to the server even though I used threading
That's because, you are accepting connection only once in Server.java.
Just creating a new thread will not accept many connections. You need to accept it many times in a loop.
I would suggest you to sSocket.accept() and then create a separate thread for each accepted connection in a loop.

Java Socket: Why client don't reply server

I want to write a client-sever program in which server and client send messages to each other. First, my server send a message to client, then the client reply. Next, my server send another message, the client reply. The problem is, on my first message induced by the server, the client does not respond.
My server:
public class Server {
public void go() {
try {
ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(9999);
System.out.println("Server listening ...");
Socket socket = serverSocket.accept();
try (
PrintWriter printWriter = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream());
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
) {
String input;
printWriter.println(new Scanner(System.in).nextLine());
while ((input = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(input);
printWriter.println(new Scanner(System.in).nextLine());
if(input == "Bye") break;
}
}
} catch (IOException ioException) {
ioException.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Server server = new Server();
server.go();
}
}
My client:
public class Client {
public void go() {
try {
try (
Socket socket = new Socket("localhost", 9999);
PrintWriter printWriter = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream());
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
) {
String input;
while ((input = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println("1");
System.out.println(input);
printWriter.println(new Scanner(System.in).nextLine());
}
}
} catch (UnknownHostException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Client client = new Client();
client.go();
}
}
Are there some problems with my code?

Your client connects and then blocks reading a line from the server.
Your server accepts the connection and then blocks reading a line from the client.
I don't know what you were expecting to happen next, but it won't. Somebody needs to send something.

Your code seems to be fine. You just need to push the infrastructure by calling flush() after writing:
printWriter.flush();

Java server-client readLine() method

I have a client class and a server class.
If client sends message to server, server will send response back to the client, then client will print all the messages it received.
For example,
If Client sends "A" to Server, then Server will send response to client
"1111". So I use readLine() in client class to read the message from server, then client print "1111" in the console.
If Client sends "B" to Server, then Server will send response to client
"2222\n 3333". So the expected printing output from client is:
"2222"
"3333"
So the response message from server to client may have 1 line or 2 lines depending on the message it send from client to server.
My question is that how I can use readLine() to read the message that send from server to client. More specifically, if I use the following codes,
String messageFromServer;
while(( messageFromServer = inputStreamFromServer.readLine()) != null) {
println(messageFromServer);
}
It will only print the first line, and will not print anything else even if I keep sending message from client to server, because readLine() will stops once it has read the first line.
update:
More specifically, I am looking for some methods in the client class to read message that contains 1 or multiple lines from server at a time. I am wondering if there are any ways to do it in client side if I don't want to change the format of the message that sent from server to client.
update 2
To make my question more clear, I will put some sample codes in the following:
This is server:
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class Server {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
ServerSocket serverSocket = null;
try {
serverSocket = new ServerSocket(1234);
} catch (IOException e) {
System.err.println("Could not listen on port: 1234.");
System.exit(1);
}
Socket clientSocket = null;
try {
clientSocket = serverSocket.accept();
} catch (IOException e) {
System.err.println("Accept failed.");
}
System.out.println("Connected");
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(clientSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(clientSocket.getInputStream()));
String textFromClient =null;
String textToClient =null;
textFromClient = in.readLine(); // read the text from client
if( textFromClient.equals("A")){
textToClient = "1111";
}else if ( textFromClient.equals("B")){
textToClient = "2222\r\n3333";
}
out.print(textToClient + "\r\n"); // send the response to client
out.flush();
out.close();
in.close();
clientSocket.close();
serverSocket.close();
}
}
The client:
public class Client {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
Socket socket = null;
PrintWriter out = null;
BufferedReader in = null;
BufferedReader read = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
try {
socket = new Socket("localhost", 1234);
out = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
} catch (UnknownHostException e) {
System.err.println("Don't know about host");
} catch (IOException e) {
System.err.println("Couldn't get I/O for the connection");
}
System.out.println("Connected");
String textToServer;
while((textToServer = read.readLine())!=null){
out.print(textToServer + "\r\n" ); // send to server
out.flush();
String messageFromServer =null;
while(( messageFromServer = textToServer=in.readLine()) != null){
System.out.println(messageFromServer);
}
}
out.close();
in.close();
read.close();
socket.close();
}
private static void debug(String msg)
{
System.out.println("Client: " + msg);
}
}

You shouldn't need to change the format of the data sent by the server, and readLine() should work, but I suspect that the server is not flushing or closing the OutputStream after writing the response which could possibly explain things.
Is the call to readLine() hanging? Are you in control of the server code? If so, can you include it?
Revised classes that work as I believe you expect:
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;
public class ClientServerTest2
{
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
{
Thread serverThread = new Thread(new Server());
serverThread.start();
Thread clientThread = new Thread(new Client());
clientThread.start();
serverThread.join();
clientThread.join();
}
private static class Server implements Runnable
{
#Override
public void run()
{
ServerSocket serverSocket = null;
try
{
serverSocket = new ServerSocket(1234);
Socket clientSocket = null;
clientSocket = serverSocket.accept();
debug("Connected");
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(clientSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(clientSocket.getInputStream()));
String textFromClient = null;
String textToClient = null;
textFromClient = in.readLine(); // read the text from client
debug("Read '" + textFromClient + "'");
if ("A".equals(textFromClient))
{
textToClient = "1111";
}
else if ("B".equals(textFromClient))
{
textToClient = "2222\r\n3333";
}
debug("Writing '" + textToClient + "'");
out.print(textToClient + "\r\n"); // send the response to client
out.flush();
out.close();
in.close();
clientSocket.close();
serverSocket.close();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static void debug(String msg)
{
System.out.println("Server: " + msg);
}
}
private static class Client implements Runnable
{
#Override
public void run()
{
Socket socket = null;
PrintWriter out = null;
BufferedReader in = null;
BufferedReader read = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
try
{
socket = new Socket("localhost", 1234);
out = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
debug("Connected");
String textToServer;
textToServer = read.readLine();
debug("Sending '" + textToServer + "'");
out.print(textToServer + "\r\n"); // send to server
out.flush();
String serverResponse = null;
while ((serverResponse = in.readLine()) != null)
debug(serverResponse); // read from server and print it.
out.close();
in.close();
read.close();
socket.close();
}
catch (IOException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
private static void debug(String msg)
{
System.out.println("Client: " + msg);
}
}

Change while(( messageFromServer = inputStreamFromServer.readLine() != null) to while(( messageFromServer = inputStreamFromServer.readLine()) != null)
Actually this shouldn't even compile....

It's a work around.
If you want to send multiple strings like in your case : "2222\n 3333".
You can send them by adding a seperator character (like :) between two strings : "2222: 3333".
Then you can call write from server side as
clientOut.write("2222: 3333\n");
On client side parse recieved String :
messageFromServer = inputStreamFromServer.readLine();
String strArray[] = messageFromServer.split(":");
strArray[0] : 2222
strArray[0] : 3333