50th post

For my 50th post I'd thought I'd let everyone I'm still alive. And I know I always say this but I'm planning on posting more regularly... At least I'll put more effort into it.

So my last post I posted this picture:

I've finally decided to run with it. I really have nothing to lose but my valuable time that I seem to be wasting mostly on watching some really good TV shows and crochet projects.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me and I won't be able to do much. But my goal is to get a Menu system up and running by the end of next week. After that I'll start work on the core of the game and getting a level scrolling across and people/baddies moving around on it.

So a really tentative schedule:
Week 1: Menu System
Week 2: Basic Scrolling Level and Moving Dudes
Week 3: Physics such as jumping and moving around and falling
Week 4: Graphics and Music???
Week 5: Misc. Stuff

This will just start of being a single level game but I'm hoping that if I build it the right way it should be easy enough to continue on and add new levels and baddies and such. I'll try to remember to keep updating my problems and progress.

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Full of Ideas.

I have a couple of ideas I've been throwing around but I haven't found one I'm enough in love with to actually start the project. The closest one is based off of this image:

Actually doing something with it is going to take some time and effort... both of which I'm lacking at the moment.

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Interesting Tutorial

I've been working through this tutorial here. We'll see how things go with it, if they go anywhere.
I'll update as soon as I have something more to show than the programs that have been installed!

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I'm still breathing.

I just haven't found time to work on any exciting projects now that I have a full time job and have discovered the joys of British TV shows. Unfortunately, I've caught up on my Doctor Who and Sherlock and have to wait until April for anything new (curse you Moffat!!!). Hopefully I'll have some willpower and motivation to get something created and built to brag about in my small social circles.

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Simple Chat Program

For my final project in networking I created a simple Server/Client Chat Program. This is the final version of the server side code.


//Necessary Libraries
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.*;


//The Server Class contains all the classes and functions that
//this Chat Server needs to run
//Start this Class by calling the startHostingServer Function
class Server
{
    //Holds the Socket connections with the Clients
    private ArrayList connections;
    
    private ArrayList dirtyWords;
        
    //Class that will Handle the Client Connection
    //This is a thread to allow multiple clients to
    //be handled concurrently
    public class ClientHandler implements Runnable
    {
        //Buffered reader for input from the Client
        BufferedReader reader;
        
        //The socket connection to the Client
        Socket sock;
        
        //The Constructor that will be used when creating a instance
        //of this class.  It takes as a parameter the Socket that
        //has been set up with the Client
        public ClientHandler(Socket clientSocket)
        {
            try
            {
                //Sets up sock and reader
                sock = clientSocket;
                InputStreamReader isReader = new InputStreamReader(sock.getInputStream());
                reader = new BufferedReader(isReader);
            }
            catch(Exception ex)
            {
                ex.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        
        //This is what is run when the Thread is started
        //Gets any messages from the client and lets all the other clients
        //on this server know what the message is
        public void run()
        {
            String message;
            try
            {
                while((message = reader.readLine()) != null)
                {
                    tellEveryone(filterMessage(message));
                }
            }
            catch(Exception ex)
            {
                ex.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }
    
    //This is what is called to start the server
    //Creates a new StartServer and starts the getConnections
    //function
    //This is called by the StartHosting Class
    public void startHostingServer(int portNumber)
    {
        StartServer server = new StartServer();
        server.setupDirtyWords();
        server.getConnections(portNumber);
    }
    
    //This is the StartServer Class
    //This starts the server and gets connections to the clients
    public class StartServer
    {
        //This Sets up the dictionary that will be used to filter out
        //the dirty words that may be used
        public void setupDirtyWords()
        {
            dirtyWords = new ArrayList();
            try
            {
                //This is the file where the list of dirty words
                //are located at
                File dwFile = new File("dirtyWords.txt");
                FileReader fileReader = new FileReader(dwFile);
                BufferedReader bufReader = new BufferedReader(fileReader);
                
                String word;
                while((word = bufReader.readLine()) != null)
                {
                    dirtyWords.add(word + " ");
                }
                bufReader.close();
                
            }
            catch(Exception ex)
            {
                ex.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        
        //Accepts Client Connections to the Server
        public void getConnections(int portNumber)
        {
            
            try
            {
                //Create the WelcomSocket for the Server to recieve Connections
                ServerSocket welcomeSocket;
                welcomeSocket = new ServerSocket(portNumber);
                
                //Initializes the connections ArrayList
                connections = new ArrayList();
            
                //This is continually run to continue accepting connections for
                //any host that may want to join
                while(true)
                {
                    Socket clientSocket = welcomeSocket.accept();
                    PrintWriter writer = new PrintWriter(clientSocket.getOutputStream());
                    connections.add(writer);
                    Thread t = new Thread(new ClientHandler(clientSocket));
                    t.start();
                }
            }
            catch(Exception ex)
            {
                ex.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        
    }
    
    //send the message to everyone
    public void tellEveryone(String message)
    {
        Iterator it = connections.iterator();
        while(it.hasNext())
        {
            try
            {
                PrintWriter writer = (PrintWriter) it.next();
                writer.println(message);
                writer.flush();
            }
            catch(Exception ex)
            {
                ex.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }
    
    //This is the actual filtering of the message
    //This goes through the list of dirty words and makes sure
    //none of those words are present in the message
    public String filterMessage(String message)
    {
        for (int loop = 0; loop < dirtyWords.size(); loop++)
        {
            message = message.replaceAll(dirtyWords.get(loop).toString(), "*censored*");
        }
        return message;
    }
}


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Just looking at some of the projects I've worked on in the past. One of my favorite was a group project me and some guys from some of my classes did was this networked bingo game. You can download the .jar files and view all the source code here.

We used threads to run the server based part (originally it was a stand alone game and then we networked it, so we tried to keep most of the original structure intact). Here's the run function:

public void run()

{

try

{

//Set the port number

int port = 1352;

//Establish the listen socket.

ServerSocket welcomeSocket = new ServerSocket(port);

InetAddress addr = InetAddress.getLocalHost();

String ip = addr.getHostAddress();

mMessage.setText("   Server IP Address: " + ip);

//Process service requests in an infinite loop

while (true)

{

//Listen for a TCP connection request

Socket connectionSocket = welcomeSocket.accept();

// Construct an object to process the request.

BingoHandler request = new BingoHandler(connectionSocket);

// Create a new thread to process the request.

Thread thread = new Thread(request);

// Start the thread.

thread.start();

}

}

catch (Exception e)

{

}

}

Some simple stuff, but we were really proud to get it working.

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A Beginner's Example

I know, I know... No posts in forever... I'm sorry and I really don't have any good excuses except that I've been lazy... but I'll try to be more consistent now.

If you are not a beginner, you certainly don't need to read the rest of this post. If you do continue please feel free to mock any stupid mistakes I may have made.

Anywho... I come from two wonderful parents who are both actually very into computers. Growing up we always had to have the latest and greatest in technology and I don't think we ever had less than 3 working computers and many different parts. My dad has always been into the security aspect of programs which has never been one of my interests. My mother actually was a programmer back in the day of COBOL and PASCAL, but since she's had kids she's been a stay at home mom and the programming languages and techniques are very, very different.

Recently she's wanting to get back into coding and asked me for some tips and advice on where to start. I suggested a book that I had used for my Java class and sent her a few examples I had quickly created that were simple. This is one of the examples I sent. It's simply a Dog class with a few variables and functions.

class Dog
{
//These are private member variables
//They can ONLY be accessed by the Dog 
   //classes functions
private String dogName;
private String dogSound;
private String breed;
 
   //This is what is called the Constructor
//This gets called when a new instance of 
   //the class is created
public Dog(String name, String noise)
{
dogName = name;
dogSound = noise;
}
public Dog(String name, String noise, String b)
{
dogName = name;
dogSound = noise;
breed = b;
}
 
   //This function is going to display the noise 
   //the dog makes when it barks
public void bark()
{
System.out.print(dogName + " says: " + dogSound);
      System.out.print(" " + dogSound + "!\n");
}
public String getBreed()
{
return breed;
}
}


The Dog Driver class just creates a couple of instances of the Dog class to demonstrate how to use it.

class DogDriver
{
public static void main (String args[])
{
//These to lines call the Constructor of the Dog 
      //class and create new instances of the Dog class
Dog chihuahua = new Dog("Joey", "Yip");
Dog germanShepard = new Dog("Max", "Woof");
Dog corgi = new Dog("Sam", "Moo", "Corgi");
Dog poodle = new Dog("Lulu", "Bark");

//These two lines call the bark function of the Dog 
      //class and make the Dogs bark
chihuahua.bark();
germanShepard.bark();
poodle.bark();
corgi.bark();

System.out.println(corgi.getBreed());
}
}


It's going to be an interesting experience trying to get her away from the linear concept and more comfortable with the object oriented approach, but I think it'll be a good way for me to brush up on my rusty techniques and a great review for me.

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