What is the functionality of setSoTimeout and how it works

Question

I m trying to learn Socket by myself  I m little bit confused by following text from Oracle website  I have some questions regarding that  Thanks in advance for any clear explanation      setSoTimeout      public void setSoTimeout int timeout   throws SocketException      Enable disable SO TIMEOUT with the specified timeout  in milliseconds  With this option set to a non-zero timeout  a read   call on the InputStream associated with this Socket will block for only this amount of time  If the timeout expires  a java net SocketTimeoutException is raised  though the Socket is still valid  The option must be enabled prior to entering the blocking operation to have effect  The timeout must be   0  A timeout of zero is interpreted as an infinite timeout     What is SO TIMEOUT  Socket is the endpoint of a connection  If I say  mySocket setSoTimeout 2000     Does it mean that I m blocking reading any input from the Server Client for this socket for 2000 millisecond and after this time the socket is ready to read data  What does it mean timeout expire  What is the option which must be enabled prior to blocking operation  Infinite Timeout means that the socket does t read anymore

User · Accepted Answer

The JavaDoc explains it very well      With this option set to a non-zero timeout  a read   call on the   InputStream associated with this Socket will block for only this   amount of time  If the timeout expires  a   java net SocketTimeoutException is raised  though the Socket is still   valid  The option must be enabled prior to entering the blocking   operation to have effect  The timeout must be   0  A timeout of zero   is interpreted as an infinite timeout    SO TIMEOUT is the timeout that a read   call will block  If the timeout is reached  a java net SocketTimeoutException will be thrown  If you want to block forever put this option to zero  the default value   then the read   call will block until at least 1 byte could be read

User · Answer

Does it mean that I m blocking reading any input from the Server Client for this socket for 2000 millisecond and after this time the socket is ready to read data    No  it means that if no data arrives within 2000ms a SocketTimeoutException will be thrown      What does it mean timeout expire    It means the 2000ms  in your case  elapses without any data arriving      What is the option which must be enabled prior to blocking operation    There isn t one that  must be  enabled  If you mean  may be enabled   this is one of them      Infinite Timeout menas that the socket does t read anymore    What a strange suggestion  It means that if no data ever arrives you will block in the read forever

User · Answer

This example made everything clear for me  As you can see setSoTimeout prevent the program to hang  It wait for SO TIMEOUT time  if it does not get any signal it throw exception  It means that time expired   import java io IOException  import java net ServerSocket  import java net Socket  import java net SocketTimeoutException   public class SocketTest extends Thread     private ServerSocket serverSocket     public SocketTest   throws IOException       serverSocket   new ServerSocket 8008       serverSocket setSoTimeout 10000          public void run         while  true          try           System out println  Waiting for client on port     serverSocket getLocalPort                     Socket client   serverSocket accept             System out println  Just connected to     client getRemoteSocketAddress             client close            catch  SocketTimeoutException s            System out println  Socket timed out             break          catch  IOException e            e printStackTrace            break                       public static void main String   args        try         Thread t   new SocketTest          t start          catch  IOException e          e printStackTrace

[java] What is the functionality of setSoTimeout and how it works?

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