Thread: udp chat server

Hi everyone. i am trying to write udp chat server in c language. i have written tcp chat server before and it is ok.

in tcp server, accept function returns an fd number and server communicate with a specific client according to this fd number.

but in udp, how can i listen a specific client?

In my tcp server, after a client connect to server, a thread is created and it listen this client. So for each client, there is a thread that listen to according to fd number that is returned from accept function. so any message can send according to this fd number to specific client.

How can i achieve this in udp server?

Thanks for answers.

Originally Posted by Salem

recvfrom
recvfrom() also returns information about who sent the message. Knowing this, you can use sendto() to chat back to them.

it is ok but there is no problem with sendto. the problem is that, for example i want to receive data from only cliemt 1. so how can i achieve recvfrom works for a specified client.

you can use a structure to save different data types for different clients.....and send it via send() and recieve via recv()....
but you should have struct both to client and server.....(better in external header file.....)
e.g:
mystruct.h :

Code:

struct data{        
    int i;                 
    char info[50];
  }r1;

at server side:

Code:

r1.i=10;

n = send(sock, (void *) &r1, sizeof(r1),0);
   if (n < 0) perror("ERROR in send()");

and at client side:

Code:

n = recv(sock, (void *) &r1, sizeof(r1),0);
printf("i=%d",r1.i);

To understand how udp sockets works look at this picture:

Might I add that it is extremely unwise to use UDP for a chat server. A chat server should be reliable and thus should use TCP, with only extremely rare exceptions.

Originally Posted by evoex

might i add that it is extremely unwise to use udp for a chat server. A chat server should be reliable and thus should use tcp, with only extremely rare exceptions.

+100000!!!