How to dispose an object with it's own thread?

[Cakkie]

I'm currently writing a multithreaded socket server, where each connection has it's own thread. Connections are represented by classes. Upon connection, a new instance in created, which starts a new thread for that connection, and accepts and processes the connection. The reference to the connection is stored in a collection, called colConnections which is maintained by a server class.
So far so good. Now the connection is broken (either by client, server, or from the connection object) and I want to dispose the object. How do I go about? When it needs to be done from the server, it's no problem, but when the client breaks the connection or the connection object breaks the connection I need to get rid of the object.
This might give a better view on the situation.

server
 -- connections
     -- connection

So if the "server" closes the connection (like server shutting down), it just gets the object from the "connections" collection, and sets it to nothing.
But when connection is broken by the connection object itself, I need to make sure it is gone completely.
I was thinking of killing the thread that runs the connection object, but I'm not sure if that will do the trick. Will the object itself "disappear" when the thread is gone?

Sorry for the difficult explanation

[Hinder]

I am having this exact same problem Anyone with some insight on this would be helpfull. I have buillt a multi-threaded server and I'm finding that when a client adbrupley disconnectect, the Socket.IsConnected flag does not change to false, which in turn keeps the socket alive. In VB6, with the socket control, it would fire an error and you could handle it there. I Fired up my server last night and connected to it through my web browser just to activate the connections.. Closed the web browser, and went to bed.. Woke up this morning to find there are still 2 live connections to my server and nothing connected to it. You would think the sockets would time themselves out after a period of time but I guess that is not the case. Anyone?

[DevGrp]

Use events. Fire an event each time the connection is broken, then dispose of the object. Post some more code and I'll try to and figure something out when I get home.

[Hinder]

Well it's not that easy, From what I have been reading as I scour the net for answers, the sockets we use in the Framework are stateless (A raw socket I assume). I have seen a couple of different ways to handle a Disconnect but they aren't that pretty. One way is to poll your sockets and send a packet periodically, it will throw an exeption if it's not connected, then you can handle the close on the execption. Surely there has got to be a cleaner, and better way to handle socket closing monitoring. I don't mind polling the sockets but there has got to be a way to check the state of the socket maybe (better than sending a dummy packet). I'll list the 3 MAIN subs that contribute to this problem but I don't think they will do much good for the cause.


'Start the listner
Public Sub StartServer()
Dim aCnt As Int16

'Make sure server isn't running
If blnRunning Then Exit Sub

'Set up the listener
Listener = New TcpListener(ServPort) : Listener.Start()

'Start the thread manager
Dim X As New Thread(AddressOf ThreadMngr) : X.Start()

'Start listening
blnRunning = True

RaiseEvent SetStatus("Server Started: " & Now)
RaiseEvent ClientLogin()

While blnRunning
Try
Thread.Sleep(100)
Dim InSock As Socket = Listener.AcceptSocket
For aCnt = 0 To Clients.Length - 1
If Clients(aCnt) Is Nothing Then
Clients(aCnt) = New clsClient(InSock, aCnt)
AddHandler Clients(aCnt).GetMessage, AddressOf Clients(aCnt).HandleMessage
Dim T As New Thread(AddressOf Clients(aCnt).Listen) : T.Start()
RaiseEvent ClientLogin()
Exit Try
End If
Next
Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox(ex.Message)
End Try
End While


'The thread manager
Private Sub ThreadMngr()
Dim aCnt As Int16
'Manage the client threading
While Me.blnRunning
Thread.Sleep(100)
For aCnt = 0 To Clients.Length - 1
If Not Clients(aCnt) Is Nothing Then
If Not Clients(aCnt).ClientSocket.Connected Then
Clients(aCnt) = Nothing
RaiseEvent ClientLogout()
End If
End If
Next
End While
End Sub







'Class client code
Public Class clsClient
Private mSocket As Socket
Private MyID As Int16
Public Event GetMessage(ByVal strMsg As String)

Public Sub New(ByVal tSock As Socket, ByVal Index As Int16)
mSocket = tSock
MyID = Index
End Sub

Public ReadOnly Property ClientID() As Int16
'Return clients Index
Get
Return MyID
End Get
End Property

Public ReadOnly Property ClientSocket() As Socket
'Return clients Socket
Get
Return mSocket
End Get
End Property

Public Sub Listen()
Dim SB As System.Text.StringBuilder

While Me.ClientSocket.Connected
Thread.Sleep(100)
Try
If Me.ClientSocket.Available > 0 Then
End If
Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox(ex.Message)
Me.ClientSocket.Close()
End Try

End While

End Sub

'Where we get our data from
Public Sub HandleMessage(ByVal strMsg As String)

End Sub

End Class