Read from or write to a socket

Usage

read.socket(socket, maxlen=256, loop=FALSE)
write.socket(socket, string)

Arguments

socket a socket object
maxlen maximum length of string to read
loop wait for ever if there is nothing to read?
string string to write to socket

Description

read.socket reads a string from the specified socket, write.socket writes to the specified socket. There is very little error checking done by either.

Value

read.socket returns the string read.

Author(s)

Thomas Lumley

See Also

close.socket, make.socket

Examples

finger <- function(user, host = "localhost", port = 79, print = TRUE)
{
    if (!is.character(user))
        stop("user name must be a string")
    user <- paste(user,"\r\n")
    socket <- make.socket(host, port)
    on.exit(close.socket(socket))
    write.socket(socket, user)
    output <- character(0)
    repeat{
        ss <- read.socket(socket)
        if (ss == "") break
        output <- paste(output, ss)
    }
    close.socket(socket)
    if (print) cat(output)
    invisible(output)
}
finger("root")  ## only works if your site provides a finger daemon

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