How to implement file transfer with Java sockets?

Question

Hello,

I am working on a chat implementation with Java sockets. I have focused on few functionalities, like authentication, one person chat and a group chat. I was thinking about adding file transfer functionality, and I wonder what's the good practice about this. Should I have separate socket on the server with different port listening just for file transfers? Right now input and output streams that I get from server socket are binded to Scanner and PrintWriter objects respectively, so I find it hard to use that for file transfer.

Any patterns you guys could recommend or give me good recommendations are very appreciated.

Thanks,

ZeKoU

Answer 1

Well ftp creates a new socket for each file transfert. Note that the connection can be established on the same port as the one used for chat, but with a different initialization dialog.