We start out finished threads on time this year...

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I. Networking:  It's all just bits!!  (zeros & ones)

1. What does it take to make the internet?
   
1. computers,
2. phone lines, (or some other means of transmission:  wireless (radio), optical)
   
3. protocols (see a definition).
4. (OK, modems help too...)
1. hardware devices to translate the phone information into computer bits & back.
   
2. All information in a computer is just bits.
1. 0s & 1s.
2. This is true in memory, and also going across a phone line.
3. When you come down to it, there's not much difference between a disk & a phone line from the perspective of a CPU.
4. You can think of networking as being pretty much like file I/O.
5. If an object is serializable for files, it's serializable for networking.
6. Most basic objects implement serializable.  For example, Component does, so all the widgets in GUIs are serializable.
3. The biggest difference between networking & files is that even more can go wrong.
1. Information gets lost or corrupted.
2. Phone lines are noisy.
3. So have to have redundant information, ways to check if something changed, ways to ask for things that have gotten lost or damaged.
4. A protocol is a system for communicating between two computers.
1. Happens at many levels of abstraction.
2. Application protocols are often human readable so that they can be debugged.  But lower level protocols are only for machines.
3. Will learn about these in two weeks.
5. Will talk more about how the internet works in general in two weeks.
   
6. Today we're going to just talk about the most basic case: two computers talking to each other.
   

II. Clients & Servers.

1. Sometime (in the 80's?) people noticed you didn't have to have one big expensive computer do everything.
2. Computers could be specialized to a task.
3. Modularity: making programs smaller makes the easier to code, debug & maintain.
4. A basic pattern:  client / server.
1. Server provides a service needed by many people, programs or computers.  E.g.
1. file server
2. database server
3. web server
2. Clients use the services.
1. Now-a-days at least clients usually run locally on a computer used exclusively by the user.
2. But in the old days, some people used this architecture even if everyone was on the same computer:
1. made the code cleaner, and/or
2. provided single point for security, file integrity etc.
5. For coursework 2, you will make a chat program with a client & server.
1. The main difference between the client & the server will be which is already running (server) & which goes looking for the server to attach to (client.)
1. Once they are connected, they both behave the same way.
2. Server listens for a client to contact it, then connects the two programs.
3. Servers often provide multiple connections:  if you are going to try to have multiple chat lines, you'll probably want the server to do the coordinating.
6. Networking works almost the same if both programs are on the same machine as if they are on a different machine.
1. The main difference from a programming perspective is that the address you use for finding the other program is longer.
2. Given what I said about incremental design, you should probably try to make networking work on the same machine before you try to get it working across different machines.
   

III. Sockets & Java

1. Sockets are the most basic networking thing you need in Java.
2. They exist in any networking-capable language.
1. Java hides more of the complexity / makes networking easier to use than older languages.
   
3. The sort of virtual line that connects two programs is called a pipe.
1. In unix/linux you can create a pipe between two programs on the command line using "|" -- so that character is often called a pipe.
   
2. unix programs have three sort of `automatic' sockets, named STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR
1. (standard in, standard out, and standard error)
   
2. Normally STDIN gets the keyboard, STDOUT goes to the terminal, but you can redirect these either into files or pipes.
   
3. Example:   % egrep jjb sent-mail | wc
1. Assuming % is the prompt.
   
2. This finds all the lines in your file sent-mail that have the word "jjb" in them, then pipes the output into a program that will count the lines (& words & letters) so you can see how many times you've emailed me.
3. could also pipe it through "less" & see the lines on the screen in a program that lets you go forwards & backwards through the output.
4. A socket is what's at either end of a pipe.
1. You can think of it as the hole in an application that data goes through.
2. A program will have one socket for every connection it has open at one time.
3. Often you might have two pipes going to the same other program --- one for input & one for output.
1. Of course, if pipe1 is input for application1, it is output for application2!
2. Then presumably pipe2 is output for application1 and input for application2.
4. Java sockets will handle both input & output for you, but split these into two different streams.
1. This is probably because people used to always get really confused connecting their sockets up right...
   
5. In Java, sockets live in java.net, along with a whole lot of other useful networking things. 
   
6. Java's basic sockets provide a connection-oriented protocol which will make sure no data is lost for you.
1. connection is maintained even when no data is going down it.
2. In particular, Java uses TCP (the Transmission Control Protocol).
3. This works on top of IP (the Internet Protocol) which is what handles the packets 
1. packets are little chunks the data gets broken into so no big / slow chunk risks getting lost
2. packets include some other useful information such as the address they're going to.
3. having the address in every packet is redundant, so the size of packets has to be traded off with other networking considerations.
7. To connect two applications, we need a full address,
   
1. An IP address, or a name to look it up with, and
2. A port number. 
   
1. A port number is an abstraction made up  inside the computer so that multiple applications can be talking over the network at one time.
2. Each socket has its own port number, so you can tell which socket should get any particular infromation packet.
3. Need to pick a port number that's not being used by anything else!  So choose a big one (e.g. more than 10000).
1. Better if you can look -- on unix/linux look at the file /etc/services.
2. If anyone knows where to look on Microsoft, let me know...
3. What you really want to do also is to write down that you're using a port, but you guys won't have permission to do this... but you should if you are building a real service for a company!
   

IV. Code

1. These examples are taken from Learning Java. 
   
1. You might also want to see their complete sample programs for clients & servers (though more are coming Thursday!)
   
2. Notice that most of the code below is showing various ways to read & write to the socket, only one of which you'll need for coursework 2.
   
3. Notice also though that you have to be careful to always read & write in the right order!
4. It may still be easiest to use more than one socket...
   

// these examples are taken from Learning Java, pp. 335--337

// to open a client socket, we need to name the machine & the port the
// socket will be on.  We also have to catch a couple exceptions...

try {
    Socket sock = new Socket ("wupost.wustl.edu", 25);
} catch (UnknownHostException e) {
    System.out.println("Can't find host.");
} catch ( IOException e) {
    System.out.println("Error connecting to host.");
}

// Here's a client that reads & writes!

try {
    Socket server = new Socket("foo.bar.com", 1234);
    InputStream in = server.getInputStream();
    OutputStream out = server.getOutputStream();

    // write a byte
    out.write(42);
    
    // write a newline or carriage return delimited string
    PrintWriter pout = new PrintWriter (out, true);
    pout.println("Hello!");

    //read a byte
    byte back = (byte) in.read();
    
    // read a newline or carriage return delimited string
    BufferedReader bin = 
	new BufferedReader (new Input StreamReader(in));
    String response = bin.readLine();

    // send a serialized java object
    ObjectOutputStream oout = new ObjectOutputStream (out);
    oout.writeObject(new java.util.Date());
    oout.flush();
    server.close();
} catch (IOException e) {...} // every one of these operations could have died!
    

// server code (for the same conversation!  Notice these have to be in
// the same order, only reversed...)

// assume this is running on the machine foo.bar.com

try {
    // note: ServerSocket is a subclass of Socket that knows how to listen...
    ServerSocket listener = new ServerSocket (1234); 

    while (!finished) {
	Socket client = listener.accept (); // this waits for a connection
       
	InputStream in = client.getInputStream();
	OutputStream out = client.getOutputStream();
	
	// read a byte
	byte = someByte = (byte)in.read();

	// read a newline or carriage-return-delimited string
	BufferedReader bin = 
	    new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
	String someString = bin.readLine();

	// write a byte
	out.write(43);

	// say goodbye
	PrintWriter pout = new PrintWriter (out, true);
	p.out.println("Goodbye!");

	// read that serialized Java object
	ObjectInputStream oin = new ObjectInputStream(in);
	Date date = (Date)oin.readObject();
	
	client.close();
    }
    
    listener.close();

} catch (IOException e) {...}
catch (ClassNotFoundException e2) {...}

V. Summary

1. "When I started programming, we didn't have any of these sissy 'icons'
   and 'Windows.'All we had were zeros and ones -- and sometimes we didn't
   even have ones."  "I wrote an entire database program using only zeros." "You
   had zeros? We had to use the letter `O'."
   -Dilbert (Scott Adams)

2. You have a basic introduction to what's going on with networking.
3. You learned about client/server architectures.
4. You got an introduction to the code you need to communicate between programs with Java.
   

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page author: Joanna Bryson
21 February 2007