Read/print socket ouput while waiting on cin (w/o multithreading) - c++

Question

i have a client program that connects to a server via a TCP socket, below:
int main ( )
{
std::cout << "HunterChat client starting up" << std::endl;
std::string cmd;
std::string reply;
bool cont = true;
ClientSocket client_socket ( "localhost", PORT );
try {
while(cont) {
try {
std::cout << ">> ";
// std::getline(std::cin,cmd);
gets(cmd);
if(cmd.compare("logout") == 0) {
cont = false;
break;
}
client_socket << cmd;
client_socket >> reply;
std::cout << reply << std::endl;
}
catch ( SocketException& e) {
std::cout << "Exception was caught:" << e.description() << "\n";
}
}
}
catch ( SocketException& e ) {
std::cout << "Exception was caught:" << e.description() << "\n";
}
return 0;
}
ClientSocket is a custom class that lets me set up and use the TCP connection; the stream operator is overloaded with, the following code:
int status = ::send ( m_sock, s.c_str(), s.size(), MSG_NOSIGNAL );
if ( status == -1 )
{
return false;
}
else
{
return true;
}
The TCP connection itself is working fine, so I won't clutter the post up with more of it. The problem is that one of the available commands involves sending input to a client instance while said client is still waiting for cin input. This means that the server messages only get read and written when I type something into cin. I'm trying to avoid using multithreading, so is there any way to allow cin to be interrupted without it?

Answer 1

Well, you could use a loop and the function kbhit() to check for user input if you really want to. However, threading seems to me such a better solution.
#include <conio.h>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
while(1)
{
if(kbhit())
{
char x = getch();
// ...
}
// check messages asynchronously here
}
}