Http Request never ends

Question

Hi,
Well I had a few minutes on my hand and decided to build a simple socket application that handles a browser request with a �hello�. Then I decided to complicate that a little and to actually send back what I receive. However the while loop that checked the input from the browser never ends (that is I never get a �1 from inputStream.read() method).
Could someone please explain me why this happens? And how this could be solved? I mean how to detect that the request is over and it is time to respond. (In other words how can I base my response according to the request if I never know when the request is over!).
Here is the code I used import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
import java.io.BufferedOutputStream;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;
public class Test7 {
public static void main(String[] args) {
  try {
   ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(9989);
   while(true){
    Socket socket = serverSocket.accept();
    new Thread(new SimpleHttpHandler(socket)).run();
  catch (Exception e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
class SimpleHttpHandler implements Runnable{
private Socket client;
public SimpleHttpHandler(Socket client){
  this.client = client;
public void run(){
  try{
   BufferedOutputStream outputStream = new BufferedOutputStream(
     this.client.getOutputStream()
   BufferedInputStream inputStream = new BufferedInputStream(
     this.client.getInputStream()
   int in = 0;
   while((in = inputStream.read()) != -1){
    System.out.print((char)in);
    outputStream.write(in);
   outputStream.close();
   outputStream.flush();
  catch(Exception e){
   e.printStackTrace();
Regards,
Sim085

Answer 1

So you can't read RFC but can read forums? :)Can you imagine reading documentation about something by continuously minimizing and maximizing the browser window? (which I do when at work so to attract less attention) :)
Well if you want simplest way then just send header,
data and close connection that's enough.Thanks :) I understand that now :)
@bsamperi & [email protected]
The code I provided above was not correct. I fixed it and posted it again just in case someone else comes across this post. As already said this was not what I had in mind to do in the first place, but it was fun :) Anyways here is the working code! (Although naturally not good for anything)import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;
public class Test7 {
public static void main(String[] args) {
  try {
   ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(8871);
   while(true){
    System.out.println("Waiting for request");
    Socket socket = serverSocket.accept();
    new Thread(new SimpleHttpHandler(socket)).run();
  catch (Exception e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
class SimpleHttpHandler implements Runnable{
private final static String CLRF = "\r\n";
private Socket client;
private BufferedWriter writer;
private BufferedReader reader;
public SimpleHttpHandler(Socket client){
  this.client = client;
public void run(){
  try{
   this.writer = new BufferedWriter(
     new OutputStreamWriter(
       this.client.getOutputStream()
   this.reader = new BufferedReader(
     new InputStreamReader(
       this.client.getInputStream()
   System.out.println("-- IN --\n" + this.read() + "\n");
   System.out.println("-- OUT --\n" + this.write("Thank You"));
   this.writer.close();
   this.reader.close();
   this.client.close();
   System.out.println("Completed response");
   System.out.println("--------------------\n");
  catch(Exception e){
   e.printStackTrace();
private String read() throws IOException{
  String in = "";
  StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
  while(!(in = this.reader.readLine()).trim().equals("")){
   buffer.append(in + "\n");
  return buffer.toString();
private String write(String out) throws IOException{
  StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();   
  buffer.append("HTTP/1.0 200 OK" + CLRF);
  buffer.append("Content-Type: text/html" + CLRF);
  buffer.append(CLRF);
  buffer.append(out);
  buffer.append(CLRF);  
  writer.write(buffer.toString());
  return buffer.toString();
}The output of this code is: Waiting for request
-- IN --
GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg,
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/vnd.ms-excel,
application/msword, application/x-shockwave-flash, */*
Accept-Language: en-us
UA-CPU: x86
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.2;
.NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Host: localhost:8871
Connection: Keep-Alive
-- OUT --
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
Thank You
Completed response
Waiting for request
-- IN --
GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
UA-CPU: x86
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.2;
.NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Host: localhost:8871
Connection: Keep-Alive
-- OUT --
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
Thank You
Completed response
Waiting for request
...Which shows that this application will handle any web request with a �Thank You� since I am not basing the response on the request. However that should not be hard once the request and response are handled ok.
Thank to both of you for your help :)
Regards,
Sim085