wavenator:

I've loaded up the code, and added a couple of traces and fixed a minor bug. You're having some interaction problems with your console I/O. It works ... sort of. I've run out of time, so I'll give you back the code that I've tried, and show you the symptoms.

First, I added some traces, so I could see what was happening--Rather than wait for successful console input, I sent a message on both the client and server side so I could see that they both sent the expected messages. Then I discovered the minor bug: you were using $so instead of $client in the server.

Once I did that, the code started almost working. Basically, I could type some text on the server side, and it would appear on the client side. Similarly, I could type text on the client side and it would appear on the server side. But you have to alternate client & server, as successive messages aren't sent until it receives one from the other side.

Here's the slightly modified server:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use warnings;
use strict;

use threads;
use IO::Socket;
my $so = new IO::Socket::INET(LocalPort => '1300',
                                 Proto => 'tcp',
                                Listen => 10,
                                 Reuse => 1,);

my $client;

die "Socket Error: $!\n" unless $so;

sub start_thread1 {
        print "thread1 started\n";
        while(my $get=<$client>) {
                print "client : $get";
        }
        print "thread1 ended\n";
}

sub start_thread {
        print "thread started\n";
        print $client "OK ... whaddaya want?\n";
        while (my $msg = <STDIN>) {
                print $client $msg;
        }
        print "thread ended\n";
}

while ($client = $so->accept()) {
        my $thread  = threads->create("start_thread");
        my $thread1  = threads->create("start_thread1");
        # This message appears to go nowhere ... we should use $client
+!
        print $so "connected ... whatcha want?\n";
        print "connected\n";
        $thread->join();
}
[download]

And here's the client:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use warnings;
use strict;

use threads;
use IO::Socket;
my $so = new IO::Socket::INET(   PeerAddr => '127.0.0.1',
                                 PeerPort => 1300,
                                 Proto => 'tcp',
                                 Reuse => 1,);

die "Socket Error: $!\n" unless $so;

   my $thread  = threads->create(\&start_thread);
     my $thread1  = threads->create(\&start_thread1);

sub start_thread {
        print "thread\n";
        while (my $txt=<$so>) {
                print "server : $txt";
        }
        print "endthread\n";
}

sub start_thread1 {
        print "thread1\n";
        print $so "Client connected!\n";
        while (my $msg = <STDIN>) {
                print $so "$msg";
        }
        print $so "Client disconnected!\n";
        print "thread1end\n";
}

$thread->join();
$thread1->join();
[download]

Unfortunately, I don't know why they're blocking. I don't use threads, so there are several possibilities: Blocking in the IO::Socket::INET module, blocking on your console I/O, console I/O interaction with threads, and others that I can't think of.

You might want to dig through perlipc and read perlfunc for more clues. I was expecting to see read and write calls in your code, so when I initially saw it, I was wondering how on earth it was supposed to work. I also didn't see any accept() calls, but apparently the IO::Socket::INET module takes care of that since I clearly see a connection and traffic taking place.

If I get an opportunity, I'll check into it some more after work. (Unless, of course, you've already got it solved by then....)

...roboticus