How to fire event to a textarea?

Question

Hi all!
I am developing a small chat application where the data typed at the client on a textarea should be reflected in the textarea at the server. I can send data through the network and append it at the client. But if I want to handle the special keystrokes like backspace and all, I need to manually identify the code for that particular key and then do that operation on the server textarea. But what I am trying is I will send the TEXTEVENT object through the network and using information in it, I will construct a new TEXTEVENT object by changing the source object alone. Then I want to fire that on the textarea. We have a method processTextEvent in TextComponent(base of textarea). But it is protected and so even if I try to extend the textarea and do it, I don't have access to that method.
Can anyone help me out!
Thanks in advance.
Bye
Vijay

Answer 1

Here's some code that works in Window$, but fails badly in Solaris 9. In Solaris it doesn't display the characters and produces an "unexpected exception in code outside the JVM".
Here's the client
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.LinkedList;
public class TestEC extends Frame implements KeyListener
     TextField input;
     Socket sock=null;
     boolean connected = false;
     InputStream is = null;
     ObjectOutputStream oos = null;
     Thread recvThread = null;
     Thread sendThread = null;
     Queue sendQueue = null;
     TestEC()
          input = new TextField(30);
          addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter()
          {public void windowClosing(WindowEvent evt){System.exit(0);}});
          add(input);
          input.addKeyListener(this);
          pack();
     private boolean connect(String address, int port)
          try
               sock = new Socket(address, port);          // try to connect to port 9999 on my Solaris system
               is = sock.getInputStream();
               oos = new ObjectOutputStream(sock.getOutputStream());
               sendQueue = new Queue();
               recvThread = new Thread(new Runnable(){public void run(){doRecv();}});
               recvThread.start();
               sendThread = new Thread(new Runnable(){public void run(){doSend();}});
               sendThread.start();
               connected = true;
          catch(IOException e)
               System.out.println("failed to connect to: "+address+":"+port);
               sock = null;
               connected = false;
          return connected;
     public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e){sendKey(e);}
     public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e){sendKey(e);}
     public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e){sendKey(e);}
     private void sendKey(KeyEvent e)
          sendQueue.push(e);
     public static void main(String[] args)
          String address = "127.0.0.1";
          if(args.length > 0)address = args[0];
          TestEC tec = new TestEC();
          if (tec.connect(address,9999))tec.show();
          else System.exit(0);
     // read and discard until close seen, then shutdown
     private void doRecv()
          int last = 0;
          try{while(connected && -1 != last){last = is.read();}}
          catch(IOException e){e.printStackTrace();}
          connected = false;
          try
               sock.close();
               sendThread.interrupt();
          catch(Exception ce){ce.printStackTrace();}
     private void doSend()
          Object obj;
          while(connected)
               obj = sendQueue.pop();
               if(obj != null)
                    try{oos.writeObject(obj); oos.flush();}
                    catch(IOException e){e.printStackTrace();}
     // a simple queue class between two threads
     class Queue
          LinkedList q = new LinkedList();
          public synchronized void push(Object obj)
               q.add(obj);
               this.notify();     // tell pop to run with it
          public synchronized Object pop()
               if(q.isEmpty())
                    try{this.wait();}
                    catch (InterruptedException e){return null;}
               return q.remove(0);
} And here's the server
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class TestES extends Frame
     TextField output;
     Socket sock=null;
     boolean connected = false;
     ObjectInputStream ois = null;
     Thread recvThread = null;
     Thread listenThread = null;
     TestES()
          output = new TextField(30);
          addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter()
          {public void windowClosing(WindowEvent evt){System.exit(0);}});
          add(output);
          pack();
     private void start()
          listenThread = new Thread(new Runnable(){public void run(){doListen();}});
          listenThread.start();
     private void doListen()
          ServerSocket ssock = null;
          try
               ssock = new ServerSocket(9999);          // listen on port 9999 on this host
               sock = ssock.accept();
               ois = new ObjectInputStream(sock.getInputStream());
               recvThread = new Thread(new Runnable(){public void run(){doRecv();}});
               recvThread.start();
               connected = true;
          catch(IOException e)
               System.out.println("listen failed");
               sock = null;
               connected = false;
     public static void main(String[] args)
          TestES tes = new TestES();
          tes.start();
          tes.show();
     // read and process events from socket
     private void doRecv()
          Object obj;
          while(connected)
               try
                    obj = ois.readObject();
                    postEvent(obj);
               catch(Exception e){e.printStackTrace(); connected = false;}
          try
               sock.close();
          catch(Exception ce){ce.printStackTrace();}
     private void postEvent(Object obj)
          output.requestFocus();
          output.dispatchEvent((KeyEvent) obj);