OPC UA Client capture the lost item values from the UA server after a disconnect/connection error? - opc-ua

I am building a OPC UA Client using OPC Foundation SDK. I am able to create a subscription containing some Monitoreditems.
On the OPC UA server these monitored items change value constantly (every second or so).
I want to disconnect the client (simulate a connection broken ), keep the subcription alive and wait for a while. Then I reconnect having my subscriptions back, but I also want all the monitored Item values queued up during the disconnect. Right now I only get the last server value on reconnect.
I am setting a queuesize:
monitoredItem.QueueSize = 100;
To kind of simulate a connection error I have set the "delete subscription" to false on ClosesSession:
m_session.CloseSession(new RequestHeader(), false);
My question is how to capture the content of the queue after a disconnect/connection error???
Should the ‘lost values’ be “new MonitoredItem_Notification” automatically when the client reconnect?
Should the SubscriptionId be the same as before the connection was broken?
Should the sessionId be the same or will a new SessionId let med keep the existing subscriptions? What is the best way to simulate a connection error?
Many questions :-)
A sample from the code where I create the subscription containing some MonitoredItems and the MonitoredItem_Notification event method.
Any OPC UA Guru out there??
if (node.Displayname == "node to monitor")
{
MonitoredItem mon = CreateMonitoredItem((NodeId)node.reference.NodeId, node.Displayname);
m_subscription.AddItem(mon);
m_subscription.ApplyChanges();
}
private MonitoredItem CreateMonitoredItem(NodeId nodeId, string displayName)
{
if (m_subscription == null)
{
m_subscription = new Subscription(m_session.DefaultSubscription);
m_subscription.PublishingEnabled = true;
m_subscription.PublishingInterval = 3000;//1000;
m_subscription.KeepAliveCount = 10;
m_subscription.LifetimeCount = 10;
m_subscription.MaxNotificationsPerPublish = 1000;
m_subscription.Priority = 100;
bool cache = m_subscription.DisableMonitoredItemCache;
m_session.AddSubscription(m_subscription);
m_subscription.Create();
}
// add the new monitored item.
MonitoredItem monitoredItem = new MonitoredItem(m_subscription.DefaultItem);
//Each time a monitored item is sampled, the server evaluates the sample using a filter defined for each monitoreditem.
//The server uses the filter to determine if the sample should be reported. The type of filter is dependent on the type of item.
//DataChangeFilter for Variable, Eventfilter when monitoring Events. etc
//MonitoringFilter f = new MonitoringFilter();
//DataChangeFilter f = new DataChangeFilter();
//f.DeadbandValue
monitoredItem.StartNodeId = nodeId;
monitoredItem.AttributeId = Attributes.Value;
monitoredItem.DisplayName = displayName;
//Disabled, Sampling, (Report (includes sampling))
monitoredItem.MonitoringMode = MonitoringMode.Reporting;
//How often the Client wish to check for new values on the server. Must be 0 if item is an event.
//If a negative number the SamplingInterval is set equal to the PublishingInterval (inherited)
//The Subscriptions KeepAliveCount should always be longer than the SamplingInterval/PublishingInterval
monitoredItem.SamplingInterval = 500;
//Number of samples stored on the server between each reporting
monitoredItem.QueueSize = 100;
monitoredItem.DiscardOldest = true;//Discard oldest values when full
monitoredItem.CacheQueueSize = 100;
monitoredItem.Notification += m_MonitoredItem_Notification;
if (ServiceResult.IsBad(monitoredItem.Status.Error))
{
return null;
}
return monitoredItem;
}
private void MonitoredItem_Notification(MonitoredItem monitoredItem, MonitoredItemNotificationEventArgs e)
{
if (this.InvokeRequired)
{
this.BeginInvoke(new MonitoredItemNotificationEventHandler(MonitoredItem_Notification), monitoredItem, e);
return;
}
try
{
if (m_session == null)
{
return;
}
MonitoredItemNotification notification = e.NotificationValue as MonitoredItemNotification;
if (notification == null)
{
return;
}
string sess = m_session.SessionId.Identifier.ToString();
string s = string.Format(" MonitoredItem: {0}\t Value: {1}\t Status: {2}\t SourceTimeStamp: {3}", monitoredItem.DisplayName, (notification.Value.WrappedValue.ToString().Length == 1) ? notification.Value.WrappedValue.ToString() : notification.Value.WrappedValue.ToString(), notification.Value.StatusCode.ToString(), notification.Value.SourceTimestamp.ToLocalTime().ToString("HH:mm:ss.fff"));
richTextBox1.AppendText(s + "SessionId: " + sess);
}
catch (Exception exception)
{
ClientUtils.HandleException(this.Text, exception);
}
}e here

I don't know how much of this, if any, the SDK you're using does for you, but the approach when reconnecting is generally:
try to resume (re-activate) your old session. If this is successful your subscriptions will already exist and all you need to do is send more PublishRequests. Since you're trying to test by closing the session this probably won't work.
create a new session and then call the TransferSubscription service to transfer the previous subscriptions to your new session. You can then start sending PublishRequests and you'll get the queued notifications.
Again, depending on the stack/SDK/toolkit you're using some or none of this may be handled for you.

Related

avoid concurrent access of postgres db

We have two .net services (.Net core console applications) which are accessing a postgres db table.
Service 1 inserts some 500 rows every 1 minute. It runs as a background thread.
Service 2 reads data from the same table continuously. There is an MQTT publisher which keeps reading data from this table when any new data is requested. This also happens very frequently i.e atleast 4/5 times a minute.
We are getting "FATAL: sorry, too many clients already " error.
What I am assuming is since write and read is happening simultaneously too frequently, the connection is not getting dispose properly.
Is there a way to avoid read whenever a write is happening.
EDITED
Thanks for the reply.. I know some connection pooling is happening but not sure where.. so my question was how to avoid concurrent access of postgres db..
Was not sure what part of code I can post to make the question clear
I am having using clause on dbcontext and also disposed like the below..
This is retrieval section
using (PlatinumDBContext platinumDBContext = new PlatinumDBContext())
{
try
{
var data = platinumDBContext.TrendPoints.Where(x => ids.Contains(x.TrendPointID) && x.TimeStamp >= DateTime.Now.AddHours(-timeinHours));
result = data.Select(x => new Last24hours
{
Label = x.TrendPointID.ToString(),
Value = (double)x.TrendPointValue,
time = x.TimeStamp.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss")
}).ToList();
}
catch (Exception oE)
{
}
finally {
platinumDBContext.Dispose();
}
}
This is the insertion section
using (PlatinumDBContext platinumDBContext = new PlatinumDBContext())
{
try
{
foreach (var point in trendPoints)
{
if (point != null)
{
TrendPoint item = new TrendPoint();
item.CreatedDate = DateTime.Now;
item.ObjectState = ObjectState.Added;
item.TrendPointID = point.TrendID;
item.TrendPointValue = double.IsNaN(point.Value) ? decimal.MinValue : (decimal)point.Value;
item.TimeStamp = new DateTime(point.TimeStamp);
platinumDBContext.Add(item);
}
}
platinumDBContext.SaveChanges();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
}
finally
{
platinumDBContext.Dispose();
}
}
Regards,
Geervani

Cloud Service for incoming TCP connections hangs

I'm developing a cloud service (worker role) for collecting data from a number of instruments. These instruments reports data randomly every minute or so. The service itself is not performance critical and doesn't need to be asynchronous. The instruments are able to resend their data up to an hour on failed connection attempt.
I have tried several implementations for my cloud service including this one:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.sockets.tcplistener.stop(v=vs.110).aspx
But all of them hang my cloud server sooner or later (sometimes within an hour).
I suspect something is wrong with my code. I have a lot of logging in my code but I get no errors. The service just stops to receive incoming connections.
In Azure portal it seems like the service is running fine. No error logs and no suspicious cpu usage etc.
If I restart the service it will run fine again until it hangs next time.
Would be most grateful if someone could help me with this.
public class WorkerRole : RoleEntryPoint
{
private LoggingService _loggingService;
public override void Run()
{
_loggingService = new LoggingService();
StartListeningForIncommingTCPConnections();
}
private void StartListeningForIncommingTCPConnections()
{
TcpListener listener = null;
try
{
listener = new TcpListener(RoleEnvironment.CurrentRoleInstance.InstanceEndpoints["WatchMeEndpoint"].IPEndpoint);
listener.Start();
while (true)
{
_loggingService.Log(SeverityLevel.Info, "Waiting for connection...");
var client = listener.AcceptTcpClient();
var remoteEndPoint = client.Client != null ? client.Client.RemoteEndPoint.ToString() : "Unknown";
_loggingService.Log(SeverityLevel.Info, String.Format("Connected to {0}", remoteEndPoint));
var netStream = client.GetStream();
var data = String.Empty;
using (var reader = new StreamReader(netStream, Encoding.ASCII))
{
data = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
_loggingService.Log(SeverityLevel.Info, "Received data: " + data);
ProcessData(data); //data is processed and stored in database (all resources are released when done)
client.Close();
_loggingService.Log(SeverityLevel.Info, String.Format("Connection closed for {0}", remoteEndPoint));
}
}
catch (Exception exception)
{
_loggingService.Log(SeverityLevel.Error, exception.Message);
}
finally
{
if (listener != null)
listener.Stop();
}
}
private void ProcessData(String data)
{
try
{
var processor = new Processor();
var lines = data.Split('\n');
foreach (var line in lines)
processor.ProcessLine(line);
processor.ProcessMessage();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
_loggingService.Log(SeverityLevel.Error, ex.Message);
throw new Exception(ex.InnerException.Message);
}
}
}
One strange observation i just did:
I checked the log recently and no instrument has connected for the last 30 minutes (which indicates that the service is down).
I connected to the service myself via a TCP client i've written myself and uploaded some test data.
This worked fine.
When I checked the log again my test data had been stored.
The strange thing is, that 4 other instruments had connected about the same time and send their data successfully.
Why couldn't they connect by themself before I connected with my test client?
Also, what does this setting in .csdef do for an InputEndpoint, idleTimeoutInMinutes?
===============================================
Edit:
Since a cuple of days back my cloud service has been running successfully.
Unfortunately this morning last log entry was from this line:
_loggingService.Log(SeverityLevel.Info, String.Format("Connected to {0}", remoteEndPoint));
No other connections could be made after this. Not even from my own test TCP client (didn't get any error though, but no data was stored and no new logs).
This makes me think that following code causes the service to hang:
var netStream = client.GetStream();
var data = String.Empty;
using (var reader = new StreamReader(netStream, Encoding.ASCII))
{
data = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
I've read somewhere that StremReader's ReadToEnd() could hang. Is this possible?
I have now changed this piece of code to this:
int i;
var bytes = new Byte[256];
var data = new StringBuilder();
const int dataLimit = 10;
var dataCount = 0;
while ((i = netStream.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length)) != 0)
{
data.Append(Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bytes, 0, i));
if (dataCount >= dataLimit)
{
_loggingService.Log(SeverityLevel.Error, "Reached data limit");
break;
}
dataCount++;
}
Another explanation could be something hanging in the database. I use the SqlConnection and SqlCommand classes to read and write to my database. I always close my connection afterwards (finally block).
SqlConnection and SqlCommand should have default timeouts, right?
===============================================
Edit:
After some more debugging I found out that when the service wasn't responding it "hanged" on this line of code:
while ((i = netStream.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length)) != 0)
After some digging I found out that the NetStream class and its read methods could actually hang. Even though MS declares otherwise.
NetworkStream read hangs
I've now changed my code into this:
Thread thread = null;
var task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
thread = Thread.CurrentThread;
while ((i = netStream.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length)) != 0)
{
// Translate data bytes to a ASCII string.
data.Append(Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bytes, 0, i));
}
streamReadSucceeded = true;
});
task.Wait(5000);
if (streamReadSucceeded)
{
//Process data
}
else
{
thread.Abort();
}
Hopefully this will stop the hanging.
I'd say that part of your problem is you are processing your data on the thread that listens for connections from clients. This would prevent new clients from connecting if another client has started a long running operation of some type. I'd suggest you defer your processing to worker threads thus freeing the "listener" thread to accept new connections.
Another problem you could be experiencing, if your service throws an error, then the service will stop accepting connections as well.
private static void ListenForClients()
{
tcpListener.Start();
while (true)
{
TcpClient client = tcpListener.AcceptTcpClient();
Thread clientThread = new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(HandleClientComm));
clientThread.Start(client);
}
}
private static void HandleClientComm(object obj)
{
try
{
using(TcpClient tcpClient = (TcpClient)obj)
{
Console.WriteLine("Got Client...");
using (NetworkStream clientStream = tcpClient.GetStream())
using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(clientStream))
using(StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(clientStream))
{
//do stuff
}
}
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
}
}

Socket connection gets closed for no apparent reason

I am trying to implement Facebook X_FACEBOOK_PLATFORM SASL mechanism so I could integrate Facebook Chat to my application over XMPP.
Here is the code:
var ak = "my app id";
var sk = "access token";
var aps = "my app secret";
using (var client = new TcpClient())
{
client.Connect("chat.facebook.com", 5222);
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(client.GetStream())) using (var reader = new StreamReader(client.GetStream()))
{
// Write for the first time
writer.Write("<stream:stream xmlns=\"jabber:client\" xmlns:stream=\"http://etherx.jabber.org/streams\" version=\"1.0\" to=\"chat.facebook.com\"><auth xmlns=\"urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-sasl\" mechanism=\"X-FACEBOOK-PLATFORM\" /></stream:stream>");
writer.Flush();
Thread.Sleep(500);
// I am pretty sure following works or at least it's not what causes the error
var challenge = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(Convert.FromBase64String(XElement.Parse(reader.ReadToEnd()).Elements().Last().Value)).Split('&').Select(s => s.Split('=')).ToDictionary(s => s[0], s => s[1]);
var response = new SortedDictionary<string, string>() { { "api_key", ak }, { "call_id", DateTime.Now.Ticks.ToString() }, { "method", challenge["method"] }, { "nonce", challenge["nonce"] }, { "session_key", sk }, { "v", "1.0" } };
var responseString1 = string.Format("{0}{1}", string.Join(string.Empty, response.Select(p => string.Format("{0}={1}", p.Key, p.Value)).ToArray()), aps);
byte[] hashedResponse1 = null;
using (var prov = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider()) hashedResponse1 = prov.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(responseString1));
var builder = new StringBuilder();
foreach (var item in hashedResponse1) builder.Append(item.ToString("x2"));
var responseString2 = Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(string.Format("{0}&sig={1}", string.Join("&", response.Select(p => string.Format("{0}={1}", p.Key, p.Value)).ToArray()), builder.ToString().ToLower()))); ;
// Write for the second time
writer.Write(string.Format("<response xmlns=\"urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-sasl\">{0}</response>", responseString2));
writer.Flush();
Thread.Sleep(500);
MessageBox.Show(reader.ReadToEnd());
}
}
I shortened and shrunk the code as much as possible, because I think my SASL implementation (whether it works or not, I haven't had a chance to test it yet) is not what causes the error.
I get the following exception thrown at my face: Unable to read data from the transport connection: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.
10053
System.Net.Sockets.SocketError.ConnectionAborted
It happens every time I try to read from client's stream for the second time. As you can see i pause a thread here so Facebook server has enough time to answer me, but I used asynchronous approach before and I encountered the exact same thing, so I decided to try it synchronously first. Anyway actual SASL mechanism implementation really shouldn't cause this because if I don't try to authenticate right away, but I send the request to see what mechanisms server uses and select that mechanism in another round of reading and writing, it fails, but when I send mechanism selection XML right away, it works and fails on whatever second I send.
So the conclusion is following: I open the socket connection, write to it, read from it (first read works both sync and async), write to it for the second time and try to read from it for the second time and here it always fails. Clearly then, problem is with socket connection itself. I tried to use new StreamReader for second read but to no avail. This is rather unpleasant since I would really like to implement facade over NetworkStream with "Received" event or something like Send(string data, Action<string> responseProcessor) to get some comfort working with that stream, and I already had the implementation, but it also failed on second read.
Thanks for your suggestions.
Edit: Here is the code of facade over NetworkStream. Same thing happens when using this asynchronous approach, but couple of hours ago it worked, but for second response returned same string as for first. I can't figute out what I changed in a meantime and how.
public void Send(XElement fragment)
{
if (Sent != null) Sent(this, new XmppEventArgs(fragment));
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
AsyncCallback callback = null;
callback = (a) =>
{
var available = NetworkStream.EndRead(a);
if (available > 0)
{
StringBuilder.Append(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(buffer, 0, available));
NetworkStream.BeginRead(buffer, 0, buffer.Length, callback, buffer);
}
else
{
var args = new XmppEventArgs(XElement.Parse(StringBuilder.ToString()));
if (Received != null) Received(this, args);
StringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
// NetworkStream.BeginRead(buffer, 0, buffer.Length, callback, buffer);
}
};
NetworkStream.BeginRead(buffer, 0, buffer.Length, callback, buffer);
NetworkStreamWriter.Write(fragment);
NetworkStreamWriter.Flush();
}
The reader.ReadToEnd() call consumes everything until end-of-stream, i.e. until TCP connection is closed.

Bulk inserts with EntityFramework 4.0 causes abort of transaction

We are receiving a file from a client (Silverlight) via WCF and on the serverside I parse this file. Each line in the file is transformed into an object and stored into the database. if the file is very large (10000 entries and more), I get the following error (MSSQLEXPRESS):
The transaction associated with the current connection has completed but has not been disposed. The transaction must be disposed before the connection can be used to execute SQL statements.
I tried a lot (TransactionOptions timeout set and so on), but nothings works. The above exception message is either raised after 3000, sometimes after 6000 objects processed, but I can't succeed in processing all objects.
I append my source, hopefully somebody got an idea and can help me:
public xxxResponse SendLogFile (xxxRequest request
{
const int INTERMEDIATE_SAVE = 100;
using (var context = new EntityFramework.Models.Cubes_ServicesEntities())
{
// start a new transactionscope with the timeout of 0 (unlimited time for developing purposes)
using (var transactionScope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.RequiresNew,
new TransactionOptions
{
IsolationLevel = System.Transactions.IsolationLevel.Serializable,
Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0)
}))
{
try
{
// open the connection manually to prevent undesired close of DB
// (MSDTC)
context.Connection.Open();
int timeout = context.Connection.ConnectionTimeout;
int Counter = 0;
// read the file submitted from client
using (var reader = new StreamReader(new MemoryStream(request.LogFile)))
{
try
{
while (!reader.EndOfStream)
{
Counter++;
Counter2++;
string line = reader.ReadLine();
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(line)) continue;
// Create a new object
DomainModel.LogEntry le = CreateLogEntryObject(line);
// an attach it to the context, set its state to added.
context.AttachTo("LogEntry", le);
context.ObjectStateManager.ChangeObjectState(le, EntityState.Added);
// while not 100 objects were attached, go on
if (Counter != INTERMEDIATE_SAVE) continue;
// after 100 objects, make a call to SaveChanges.
context.SaveChanges(SaveOptions.None);
Counter = 0;
}
}
catch (Exception exception)
{
// cleanup
reader.Close();
transactionScope.Dispose();
throw exception;
}
}
// do a final SaveChanges
context.SaveChanges();
transactionScope.Complete();
context.Connection.Close();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
// cleanup
transactionScope.Dispose();
context.Connection.Close();
throw e;
}
}
var response = CreateSuccessResponse<ServiceSendLogEntryFileResponse>("SendLogEntryFile successful!");
return response;
}
}
There is no bulk insert in entity framework. You call SaveChanges after 100 records but it will execute 100 separate inserts with database round trip for each insert.
Setting timeout of the transaction is also dependent on transaction max timeout which is configured on machine level (I think default value is 10 minutes). How lond does it take before your operation fails?
The best way you can do is rewriting your insert logic with common ADO.NET or with bulk insert.
Btw. throw exception and throw e? That is incorrect way to rethrow exceptions.
Important edit:
SaveChanges(SaveOptions.None) !!! means do not accept changes after saving so all records are still in added state. Because of that the first call to SaveChanges will insert first 100 records. The second call will insert first 100 again + next 100, the third call will insert first 200 + next 100, etc.
I had exactly same issue. I did EF code to insert bulk 1000 records each time.
I was working since the beginning, with a little problem with msDTC that I put to allow remot clients and admin , but after that it was ok. I did lot of work with this, but one day it JUST STOP WORKING.
I am getting
The transaction associated with the current connection has completed but has not been disposed. The transaction must be disposed before the connection can be used to execute SQL statements.
VERY WEIRD! Sometimes the error changes. My suspect is the msDTC somehow , strange behaviors.
I am changing now for not using TransactionScope!
I hate when it did work and just stop. I also tried to run this in a vm, another enourmous waste of time...
My code:
private void AddTicks(FileHelperTick[] fhTicks)
{
List<ForexEF.Entities.Tick> Ticks = new List<ForexEF.Entities.Tick>();
var str = LeTicks(ref fhTicks, ref Ticks);
using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required, new TransactionOptions()
{
IsolationLevel = System.Transactions.IsolationLevel.Serializable,
Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(180)
}))
{
ForexEF.EUR_TICKSContext contexto = null;
try
{
contexto = new ForexEF.EUR_TICKSContext();
contexto.Configuration.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;
int count = 0;
foreach (var tick in Ticks)
{
count++;
contexto = AddToContext(contexto, tick, count, 1000, true);
}
contexto.SaveChanges();
}
finally
{
if (contexto != null)
contexto.Dispose();
}
scope.Complete();
}
}
private ForexEF.EUR_TICKSContext AddToContext(ForexEF.EUR_TICKSContext contexto, ForexEF.Entities.Tick tick, int count, int commitCount, bool recreateContext)
{
contexto.Set<ForexEF.Entities.Tick>().Add(tick);
if (count % commitCount == 0)
{
contexto.SaveChanges();
if (recreateContext)
{
contexto.Dispose();
contexto = new ForexEF.EUR_TICKSContext();
contexto.Configuration.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;
}
}
return contexto;
}
It times out due the TransactionScope default Maximum Timeout, check the machine.config for that.
Check out this link:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowstransactionsprogramming/thread/584b8e81-f375-4c76-8cf0-a5310455a394/

Detecting client TCP disconnection while using NetworkStream class

A friend of mine came to me with a problem: when using the NetworkStream class on the server end of the connection, if the client disconnects, NetworkStream fails to detect it.
Stripped down, his C# code looked like this:
List<TcpClient> connections = new List<TcpClient>();
TcpListener listener = new TcpListener(7777);
listener.Start();
while(true)
{
if (listener.Pending())
{
connections.Add(listener.AcceptTcpClient());
}
TcpClient deadClient = null;
foreach (TcpClient client in connections)
{
if (!client.Connected)
{
deadClient = client;
break;
}
NetworkStream ns = client.GetStream();
if (ns.DataAvailable)
{
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
object o = bf.Deserialize(ns);
ReceiveMyObject(o);
}
}
if (deadClient != null)
{
deadClient.Close();
connections.Remove(deadClient);
}
Thread.Sleep(0);
}
The code works, in that clients can successfully connect and the server can read data sent to it. However, if the remote client calls tcpClient.Close(), the server does not detect the disconnection - client.Connected remains true, and ns.DataAvailable is false.
A search of Stack Overflow provided an answer - since Socket.Receive is not being called, the socket is not detecting the disconnection. Fair enough. We can work around that:
foreach (TcpClient client in connections)
{
client.ReceiveTimeout = 0;
if (client.Client.Poll(0, SelectMode.SelectRead))
{
int bytesPeeked = 0;
byte[] buffer = new byte[1];
bytesPeeked = client.Client.Receive(buffer, SocketFlags.Peek);
if (bytesPeeked == 0)
{
deadClient = client;
break;
}
else
{
NetworkStream ns = client.GetStream();
if (ns.DataAvailable)
{
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
object o = bf.Deserialize(ns);
ReceiveMyObject(o);
}
}
}
}
(I have left out exception handling code for brevity.)
This code works, however, I would not call this solution "elegant". The other elegant solution to the problem I am aware of is to spawn a thread per TcpClient, and allow the BinaryFormatter.Deserialize (née NetworkStream.Read) call to block, which would detect the disconnection correctly. Though, this does have the overhead of creating and maintaining a thread per client.
I get the feeling that I'm missing some secret, awesome answer that would retain the clarity of the original code, but avoid the use of additional threads to perform asynchronous reads. Though, perhaps, the NetworkStream class was never designed for this sort of usage. Can anyone shed some light?
Update: Just want to clarify that I'm interested to see if the .NET framework has a solution that covers this use of NetworkStream (i.e. polling and avoiding blocking) - obviously it can be done; the NetworkStream could easily be wrapped in a supporting class that provides the functionality. It just seemed strange that the framework essentially requires you to use threads to avoid blocking on NetworkStream.Read, or, to peek on the socket itself to check for disconnections - almost like it's a bug. Or a potential lack of a feature. ;)
Is the server expecting to be sent multiple objects over the same connection? IF so I dont see how this code will work, as there is no delimiter being sent that signifies where the first object starts and the next object ends.
If only one object is being sent and the connection closed after, then the original code would work.
There has to be a network operation initiated in order to find out if the connection is still active or not. What I would do, is that instead of deserializing directly from the network stream, I would instead buffer into a MemoryStream. That would allow me to detect when the connection was lost. I would also use message framing to delimit multiple responses on the stream.
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
NetworkStream ns = client.GetStream();
BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(ns);
// message framing. First, read the #bytes to expect.
int objectSize = br.ReadInt32();
if (objectSize == 0)
break; // client disconnected
byte [] buffer = new byte[objectSize];
int index = 0;
int read = ns.Read(buffer, index, Math.Min(objectSize, 1024);
while (read > 0)
{
objectSize -= read;
index += read;
read = ns.Read(buffer, index, Math.Min(objectSize, 1024);
}
if (objectSize > 0)
{
// client aborted connection in the middle of stream;
break;
}
else
{
BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
using(MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(buffer))
{
object o = bf.Deserialize(ns);
ReceiveMyObject(o);
}
}
Yeah but what if you lose a connection before getting the size? i.e. right before the following line:
// message framing. First, read the #bytes to expect.
int objectSize = br.ReadInt32();
ReadInt32() will block the thread indefinitely.