CS490 Supervised Undergraduate Reserach

Computer Game Design - Spring 2003

Assignment #3 
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** NOTE: In order to do this assignment you will need a computer with 
a network connection. The network card and connection is necessary for sockets
to be established. Note that you DO NOT NEED two computers. You can run
the client and the server on the same computer by just starting the program twice
and pressing 'c' for one, and 's' for the other.

** NOTE: If you are doing your assignment in a lab, make sure that someone else is 
not trying to implement the assignment at the same time. If this occurs, your client/server may 
talk to their client/server rather than the client/server you are testing on your computer. 
If you and another student are both trying to implement the assignment in the same lab 
at the same time, I would suggest collaborating on the homwork.

Using the NetDemo as a starting point, 
implement ONE (or optionally TWO) of the following:

1) Prevent the server from being able to transmit keyboard input or display data 
     to its own console. These are non-essential operations for the server. Only the
     clients need to recieve keyboard input and display data. (Eliminate the data from 
     the server console, but leave the server state messages).     

2) Have the server send and show the servers current time on each client every 20 secs.

3) When the server recieves a char from a client, have the server selectively send that
     char to a single client at random rather than to all of them.

4) Have the client block incoming data from the server if the server sends it a char
     from a specific client. That is, if client #1 is "blocking" client #3, then if the server sends  
     data to client #1 from client #3, client #1 should not display the data. (Optional: Allow
     the user to enter as input which client # should be blocked).

5) Provide a disconnect key (like ESC) for the client. This should send a cDISCON message to 
     the server, instructing the server to remove the client from its list of clients.

6) Have the server buffer keys from each client until the return key is recieved. Once the
     return key is pressed, the server should send that buffer to every client, including the 
     new-line character. This should make the Chat Client-Server into a "real" chat program in the
     sense that you do not see what others type until they press return. In addition, each
     line written by someone will be written on a different line (rather than all the chars getting
     mixed together). Hint: You will need to maintain a buffer in the server for >each< client
     that is connected.