How to pre-allocate a ByteBuffer object to read data from a Socket

Question

Hi,
So far every example on ByteBuffer allocation has shown something like this
ByteBuffer buffer=ByteBuffer.allocate(1024);
Im stuck because i dont know how much data will arrive on the socket. Is there anyway I can find out how much data is present on a socket before allocating the ByteBuffer? And if not, what can i do to ensure that I dont lose any of the data that is present on the socket and cant be read because the buffers limit may be too small.
Thanks,
Parth

Answer 1

Hi,
Bytebuffer is just buffer so make it big enough to handle traffic.. How big it must be depends on your applicaiotn and trasfered data amount..
Following code shows an example which uses byte array as buffer... Following code is 1.2.x and above compatible using byte array instead ByteBuffer..
Vector mainbuffer = new Vector(10,1);
byte [] tempbuffer=new byte[5000]; // 5Kb buffer
// STKInBufStr is bufferedinputstream to read data till end of stream ..
// readcount show amount of data readed.. which means data amount in buffer. Data is written to buffer from start point -0,- 5000 is max read aomunt.
// once read 5000 byte then it will return to while loop and create a temporary string and add it to manibuffer and menawhile coming data is not lost.. this loop will catch all incoming dta and buffer in mainfbuffer vector Roughly speaking bigger the buffer better te performance. Remeber code will wait to read 5000 byte of data to return to while loop. 5000 only means max amount of data it can handle in every read attempt.. if just read 2 byte it will return this 2 byte to loop
while ( (readcount=STKInBufStr.read(tempbuffer,0,5000)) !=-1)
String tmp = new String(readbuffer).substring(0,readcount);
manibuffer.add(tmp);
This loop will catch all incoming data and add to mainbuffer vector..