Chatroom in C / Socket programming in Linux - c

Question

I have a simple server and client C code to do a chatroom for multiclients using threads (pthread library). The problem I've been having is that I can't think a way of making the server write every message that a client sends over the socket into all other clients. I've read other similar posts in here and it was helpless. Please help me I need to do this for school. I'll send both codes right away.
Server.c:
#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h> //strlen
#include<stdlib.h> //strlen
#include<sys/socket.h>
#include<arpa/inet.h> //inet_addr
#include<unistd.h> //write
#include<pthread.h> //for threading , link with lpthread
void *connection_handler(void *);
int main(int argc , char *argv[])
{
int socket_desc , new_socket , c , *new_sock;
struct sockaddr_in server , client;
char *message;
//Create socket
socket_desc = socket(AF_INET , SOCK_STREAM , 0);
if (socket_desc == -1)
{
printf("Could not create socket");
}
//Prepare the sockaddr_in structure
server.sin_family = AF_INET;
server.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
server.sin_port = htons( 8888 );
//Bind
if( bind(socket_desc,(struct sockaddr *)&server , sizeof(server)) < 0)
{
puts("bind failed");
return 1;
}
puts("bind done");
//Listen
listen(socket_desc , 3);
//Accept and incoming connection
puts("Waiting for incoming connections...");
c = sizeof(struct sockaddr_in);
while( (new_socket = accept(socket_desc, (struct sockaddr *)&client, (socklen_t*)&c)) )
{
puts("Connection accepted");
pthread_t sniffer_thread;
new_sock = malloc(1);
*new_sock = new_socket;
if( pthread_create( &sniffer_thread , NULL , connection_handler , (void*) new_sock) < 0)
{
perror("could not create thread");
return 1;
}
//Now join the thread , so that we dont terminate before the thread
//pthread_join( sniffer_thread , NULL);
puts("Handler assigned");
}
if (new_socket<0)
{
perror("accept failed");
return 1;
}
return 0;
}
/*
* This will handle connection for each client
* */
void *connection_handler(void *socket_desc)
{
//Get the socket descriptor
int sock = *(int*)socket_desc;
int read_size;
char *message , client_message[2000];
//Receive a message from client
while( (read_size = recv(sock , client_message , 2000 , 0)) > 0 )
{
//Send the message back to client
write(sock , client_message , strlen(client_message));
}
if(read_size == 0)
{
puts("Client disconnected");
fflush(stdout);
}
else if(read_size == -1)
{
perror("recv failed");
}
//Free the socket pointer
free(socket_desc);
return 0;
}
Client.c
#include<stdio.h> //printf
#include<string.h> //strlen
#include<sys/socket.h> //socket
#include<arpa/inet.h> //inet_addr
int main(int argc , char *argv[])
{
int sock;
struct sockaddr_in server;
char message[1000] , server_reply[2000];
//Create socket
sock = socket(AF_INET , SOCK_STREAM , 0);
if (sock == -1)
{
printf("Could not create socket");
}
puts("Socket created");
server.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("127.0.0.1");
server.sin_family = AF_INET;
server.sin_port = htons( 8888 );
//Connect to remote server
if (connect(sock , (struct sockaddr *)&server , sizeof(server)) < 0)
{
perror("connect failed. Error");
return 1;
}
puts("Connected\n");
puts("Bienvenido al Chatroom, puedes empezar a escribir en la sala!");
//keep communicating with server
while(1)
{
printf("Enter message: ");
fgets(message, sizeof(message),stdin);
//scanf("%s" , message);
//Send some data
if( send(sock , message , strlen(message) , 0) < 0)
{
puts("Send failed");
return 1;
}
//Receive a reply from the server
if( recv(sock , server_reply , 2000 , 0) < 0)
{
puts("recv failed");
break;
}
printf("Server Reply: %s\n", server_reply);
server_reply[0]='\0';
}
close(sock);
return 0;
}
These programs are very simple, the client sends what the user writes in console and the server send the same message back. I just need the server to send the same message to every thread (client) connected (not only the one who sent the original message).
I know this is long for anyone to care, but if you can, I'll be glad to get some help :)

Answer 1

You need a global table of all clients, protected by a mutex. When a new client connects, add them to the global table of clients. When a client disconnects, remove them from the global table.
When a client sends a message, acquire the lock on the global table and traverse it. Send the message to all clients (other than the one that sent the message, if you don't want to echo a message back to its source).
This is a gross oversimplification of how real servers do it. But it should be enough to get you started.