End of stream problem

Question

hi all
im having some problems with finding the end of an input stream. Basically im trying to read from a stream and then write the stream to the text box. But i can figure when the end of the stream is. The read method im using returns an int not a byte, otherwise id use:
if(input == -1) return;
but because of it being an int it never returns -1 like a byte would so im having trouble. Here's the code.
try
      int i = socketInput.read();
      while(true)
        if (i == -1) return;
        out.write(i);       
         i = socketInput.read();
    catch(IOException ioe){}any help? thanks.
btw, i know the coding probably sucks, im still trying to get my head round it.

Answer 1

From the InputStream java doc concerning method read():
read
public abstract int read()
                  throws IOException
    Reads the next byte of data from the input stream. The value byte is returned as an int
    in the range 0 to 255. If no byte is available because the end of the stream has been
    reached, the value -1 is returned. This method blocks until input data is available, the
    end of the stream is detected, or an exception is thrown.Int is find for the return of -1, but if you are really using a socket, that will probably not return -1 until the socket is closed. In fact, it will block if nothing is available. Try using available() to see if anything is there to read before doing the read(). I don't know if you can assume that, if the number of bytes available is zero, that you are done.
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