How to close the ServerSocket.accept() command in java?

Question

My problem is that the ServerSocket.accept() command keeps waiting until a client has connected to it. But what I want to do is that I have to listen for a client for a few seconds. If a client connects, then I send data to the client otherwise I have to terminate the ServerSocket.

So how do I bypass the ServerSocket.accept() command when no client has connected for some time?

Answer 1

Call ServerSocket.close() (from another thread of course). SocketException will be thrown for any thread blocking on accept() , but if a connection has been made, then existing Socket is still fine.

A simple and naive example

    ServerSocket ss = new ServerSocket(8123);

    new Thread() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            try {
                Thread.sleep(5000);
                ss.close();
            } catch(InterruptedException e) {
            } catch(IOException e) {
            }
        }
    }.start();
    Socket s = ss.accept();