Hi all :) Sorry for this really long question but this needs some explaination.
I was given an assignment where i have to turn a very simple game into a 2 player multiplayer game. The reason why we have to make this game is to learn more about threads and concurrency. I have never worked with concurrency nor with multiple threads.
My idea is to create a TCP server like i have done in GameServer.java where i create a new ServiceObject for each player. I create a thread for each ServiceObject where i will recieve, handle and send commands from a client.
Gameserver.java
package server;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.util.ArrayList;
public class GameServer {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
ServerSocket server = new ServerSocket(6789);
System.out.println("Waiting for clients to connect . . . ");
Socket s1 = server.accept();
System.out.println("Clients connected.");
PlayerService servicep1 = new PlayerService(s1);
Thread t1 = new Thread(servicep1);
Socket s2 = server.accept();
System.out.println("Clients connected.");
PlayerService servicep2 = new PlayerService(s2);
Thread t2 = new Thread(servicep2);
t1.start();
t2.start();
servicep1.sendDataToClient("ready");
servicep2.sendDataToClient("ready");
}
}
PlayerService.java
package server;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.concurrent.LinkedBlockingQueue;
import game2016.Player;
public class PlayerService extends Thread {
private Socket s;
private PlayerService opponent;
private Scanner in;
private PrintWriter out;
public PlayerService(Socket aSocket) {
this.s = aSocket;
}
public void setOpponent(PlayerService opponent) {
this.opponent = opponent;
}
public void run() {
try {
in = new Scanner(s.getInputStream());
out = new PrintWriter(s.getOutputStream());
try {
doService();
} finally {
// s.close();
}
} catch (IOException exception) {
exception.printStackTrace();
}
}
public void doService() throws IOException {
while (true) {
if (!in.hasNext()) {
return;
}
String command = in.next();
if (command.equals("QUIT")) {
return;
} else
recieveFromClient(command);
}
}
public void recieveFromClient(String command) throws IOException {
System.out.println(command);
if(command.equals("player")) {
String newPlayerName = in.next();
int xPos = in.nextInt();
int yPos = in.nextInt();
String direction = in.next();
// sendDataToOpponent("addOpponent " + newPlayerName + " " + xPos + " " + yPos + " " + direction);
}
}
public void sendDataToClient(String response) {
out.write(response + "\n");
out.flush();
}
public void sendDataToOpponent(String response) {
opponent.sendDataToClient(response);
}
}
To send data from one client to another client i have a reference to the opponents servicelayer as i can invoke the sendDataToOpponent() method to send data to him and if the server have to communicate i can just invoke sendDataToClient() from the server.
My problem is that i want to postpone opening my clients GUI to both clients have connected.
Main.java(Client) - GUI code have been left out
private static Socket s;
private static InputStream instream;
private static OutputStream outstream;
private static Scanner in;
private static PrintWriter out;
private static boolean isOpponentConnected;
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
openConnection();
reciever();
waitOpponentConected();
launch(args);
}
public static void waitOpponentConected() throws Exception {
while(!isOpponentConnected) {
System.out.println("Waiting for opponent");
Thread.sleep(2000);
}
System.out.println("Opponent is ready now");
}
public static void openConnection() throws IOException {
s = new Socket("localhost", 6789);
System.out.println("Connection established");
instream = s.getInputStream();
outstream = s.getOutputStream();
in = new Scanner(instream);
out = new PrintWriter(outstream);
}
public static void responseFromServer() throws IOException {
try {
while(in.hasNext()) {
String response = in.next();
if(response.equals("ready")) {
isOpponentConnected = true;
System.out.println("Ready");
}
}
} catch (Exception e) {
}
}
public static void reciever() {
Task<Void> task = new Task<Void>() {
@Override
protected Void call() throws Exception {
while(true) {
responseFromServer();
}
}
};
new Thread(task).start();
}
public static void sendCommandToServer(String command) throws IOException {
out.print(command + "\n");
out.flush();
}
I've created a Thread to recieve commands from the server, and when both clients have connected to the server it sends a string 'ready' to each of the clients. My thought was that The Main-thread sleeps till isOpponentConnected is true.
But my gameserver fails and prints out a nullpointer exception when the second clients connects to the server. I've spend to days reading and trying to fix this bug. When i run the code in debug mode, both clients recieves the ready signal and the GUI starts for both clients.
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at server.PlayerService.sendDataToClient(PlayerService.java:67)
at server.GameServer.main(GameServer.java:23)
Can you guys see anything i'm obviously doing wrong?
I think this queston is interesseting because it's not just the nullpointerexception, it's about structering TCP server-client relationships and the chain when things are initialized and ready when threads and connections are made.
