Using select without listen()ing, possible? - c++

Question

I am building a client that:
Should be able to recieve information from both the server and the standart input
Should be able to recieve information from the server without asking, for example when another client sends a message.
To do so I tried using select to monitor both possible inputs.
What happens is that when a keyboard input is monitored I send a message to the client and I expect one back, so there's no problem. But when the server sends an unexpected message nothing happens, and I don't know why. Is using select() the proper way to do so? Is it even possible to use select() without listen()ing?
Here's my code (compileable):
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <cstring>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#define MAX_CLIENT_NAME 30
#define MAX_TWIT_SIZE 140
#define NUM_OF_ARG 4
#define ERROR -1
#define GREAT_SUCCESS 0
#define OK "OK"
#define EXIT "EXIT"
using std::string;
using std::cerr;
using std::endl;
using std::cout;
string clientName;
int srverfd, numbytes, status, maxSock ;
fd_set inputFdSet; /* Socket file descriptors we want to wake
up for, using select() */
int establishConnection(char * serverAddress,char * port){
if ((srverfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) == -1) {
perror("socket");
return ERROR;
}
struct sockaddr_in server;
server.sin_family = AF_INET;
inet_aton(serverAddress, &server.sin_addr);
server.sin_port = htons(atoi(port));
memset(&(server.sin_zero), '\0', 8);
if (connect(srverfd,(const struct sockaddr *)&server,sizeof(struct sockaddr)) == -1) {
perror("connect");
close(srverfd);
return ERROR;
}
maxSock = srverfd;
return GREAT_SUCCESS;
}
const char * getUserTweet(){
string temp;
getline(std::cin,temp);
return temp.c_str();
}
void sendMessage(string message){
if ((numbytes = send(srverfd, message.c_str(), message.length(), 0)) == -1) {
perror("sendMessage");
close(srverfd);
}
cout<<"Message sent: "<< message << endl;
return;
}
const char * getMessage(){
char buf[MAX_TWIT_SIZE];
memset(buf,'\0',MAX_TWIT_SIZE);
if ((numbytes = recv(srverfd, buf, 140, 0)) == -1) {
perror("getMessage");
close(srverfd);
}
string temp = buf;
return temp.c_str();
}
void build_select_list() {
FD_ZERO(&inputFdSet);
FD_SET(srverfd,&inputFdSet);
FD_SET(STDIN_FILENO,&inputFdSet);
if (STDIN_FILENO > maxSock)
maxSock = STDIN_FILENO;
return;
}
void readSocket(fd_set tempfd) {
const char * tweet, * inMessage;
if (FD_ISSET(srverfd,&tempfd)) {
inMessage = getMessage();
cout << inMessage << endl;
}
if (FD_ISSET(STDIN_FILENO,&tempfd)) {
tweet = getUserTweet();
sendMessage(tweet);
inMessage = getMessage();
if (strcmp(inMessage,OK) != 0) {
cout << inMessage << endl;
}
if (strcmp(inMessage,EXIT) == 0) {
return;
}
}
return;
}
int main (int argc, char *argv[] ){
int value;
bool clientON = false;
if(establishConnection(argv[2],argv[3])){
cerr << "usage: failed to make connection" << endl << "exiting..." << endl;
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
cout << "Connected successfully" << endl;
sendMessage("CONNECT "+clientName); //Connect
if(strcmp(getMessage(),OK) == 0){
clientON = true;
}
while(clientON){
build_select_list();
value = select(maxSock, &inputFdSet, NULL, NULL, NULL);
if (value < 0) {
perror("select");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
if (value == 0) {
continue;
}
else {
readSocket(inputFdSet);
}
}
sendMessage("DISCONNECT");
if(strcmp(getMessage(),OK) == 0){
// do nothing
}
close(srverfd);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

Your select call is invalid. The first parameter must be the highest file descriptor in any of the sets, plus one.
As you have it, an event on srverfd will not "wake up" the select call (unless STDIN_FILENO was somehow less than srverfd, in which case stdin events wouldn't unlock select - but that won't happen in practice).
There are quite a few other problems with your code. (It doesn't really look like C++.)
getUserTweet is unreliable (undefined behavior - temp is destroyed as soon as the function returns, so the char* you return has disappeared by the time its caller will try to use it). Same for getMessage. To remedy that, use std::string everywhere, and only extract the char* when you call into C library functions).
readSocket needlessly copies the FD set (can be expensive).
You should really get rid of all those globals - build one or two classes to encapsulate that state and the networking functions, or something like that.