Thread: Very basic app to create a socket

Hi. I'm new to java/android programming, but you sure will know it by just reading the post, as I think it has to be a very simple issue for an experienced programmer.

What I am trying to get:
An application with 2 ToggleButtons. On click they have to connect to a socket over the LAN and send a few characters (to an Arduino board which is listening).

What I've got after some days:
Android SDK, Eclipse and AVD installed and running.
An application with 2 ToggleButtons which responds to mouse clicks and shows a Toast.
There are a main activity and a class to handle the onClick event.
I tried in many ways but still can't get it to create a socket and send 2 characters.

I can connect to the Arduino from my PC with a telnet client, and even from my smartphone using an example telnet app i found over the internet, and Arduino accepts the commands, so I think (I'm quite sure) the problem is not in the Arduino program.
In order to debug my app I cut off all non essential code lines, just trying to open a socket and send a fixed string "A1". Here is what remains, but when it runs in AVD, on click shows a Toast saying "Generic ERROR", so it's not "UnknownHost" neither "IO" Exception.

Cutting off other code lines I found that the error raises on the line which creates the socket
socket = new Socket("192.168.1.123",80);
The IP address and the port numbrer are correct, I can connect there using telnet.
What's wrong with it?

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.widget.ToggleButton;
 
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
 
	@Override
	protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
		setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
 
		ToggleButton toggleButton1 = (ToggleButton) findViewById(R.id.toggleButton1);
		toggleButton1.setOnClickListener(new MioClickListener());
 
		ToggleButton toggleButton2 = (ToggleButton) findViewById(R.id.toggleButton2);
		toggleButton2.setOnClickListener(new MioClickListener());
	} //onCreate
} //MainActivity

import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.net.UnknownHostException;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
//import android.widget.ToggleButton;
import android.widget.Toast;
 
public class MioClickListener implements OnClickListener {
 
	@Override 
	public void onClick(View view) {
		Socket socket;
		PrintWriter out;
 
		try {
			socket = new Socket("192.168.1.123",80);
			out = new PrintWriter(
					new BufferedWriter(
					new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream())),true);
			out.println("A1");
			out.close();
			socket.close();
		} catch (UnknownHostException e) {
			Toast.makeText(view.getContext(), "UnknownHostException",
				Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();			
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (IOException e) {
			Toast.makeText(view.getContext(), "IOException",
				Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();			
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (Exception e) {
			Toast.makeText(view.getContext(), "Generic ERROR",
				Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
		}
}

Hmmmmm, the Socket class throws four different possible exceptions with that particular Socket constructor.

Your catches for UnknownHostException and IOException aren't catching it. It can't be IllegalArgumentException as the host isn't null. Add a catch block for SecurityException. That could be thrown if a security manager exists and its checkConnect method doesn't allow the operation. See if it still goes into the Exception catch block after adding that or if it was indeed a SecurityException.

Done. Catching SecurityException and IllegalArgumentException too. Still doesn't work.
So I changhed IP address to an invalid one (my LAN is not connected to internet).
Toggled comments on some lines, leaving just the socket one.
App doesn't catch UnknownHostException, still toasts "Generic ERROR".

import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.net.UnknownHostException;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
//import android.widget.ToggleButton;
import android.widget.Toast;
 
public class MioClickListener implements OnClickListener {
 
	@Override 
	public void onClick(View view) {
		Socket socket;
		PrintWriter out;
 
		try {
			socket = new Socket("19.68.1.7",2000);
			//out = new PrintWriter(
			//		new BufferedWriter(
			//		new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream())),true);
			//out.println("r1");
			//out.close();
			socket.close();
		} catch (UnknownHostException e) {
			Toast.makeText(view.getContext(), "UnknownHostException",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();			
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (IOException e) {
			Toast.makeText(view.getContext(), "IOException",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();			
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
			Toast.makeText(view.getContext(), "IllegalArgumentException",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();			
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (SecurityException e) {
			Toast.makeText(view.getContext(), "SecurityException",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();			
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (Exception e) {
			Toast.makeText(view.getContext(), "Generic ERROR",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
		}
}

More details:
App's running in an AVD, not in a phisical device.I don't think this is the issue, as another app runs and works from the same AVD. This is the app (I used only the client part) that works fine:
Android Socket Example | Examples Java Code Geeks
They use Threads, I'm not able to do that yet.

Perhaps something wrong in Manifest.xml? I added
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" >
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_ST ATE" >

Attached: AVD screenshot and logcat file. I cleaned up the log, uploaded the app (Run As -> Android application), clicked on the first togglebutton and then clicked again on it. Two times "Generic ERROR".


One more question:

I looked at the documentation
Socket | Android Developers
the constructor Socket(string, int) only throws UnknownHostException and IOException.
As they say Socket extends Object I looked at Object too, but still can't find SecurityException.

Then I found
Socket (Java Platform SE 7 )
Why on constructor syntax there are 2 exceptions:
public Socket(String host, int port) throws UnknownHostException, IOException
and in the descripiton there are 4? The last 2 are optional and the first 2 you MUST catch?

Is the documentation on docs.oracle.com more complete and reliable than developer.android.com? Should I use that?

I saw you must import UnknownHostException and IOException, but you can catch SecurityException and IllegalArgumentException without importing them (java.lang.....). Why?
Is there a tutorial I can read about it?

Ok for the logcat in the text. Next time I'll do.
I already tried with threads but can't get it. No idea it could be the problem, I thinked it was possible to open a client socket from anywhere in the app.
Now I start searching documentation, I'll try and understand how it works and soon will have this app working fine! (...I hope so...)
Thanks.

I just found a lot of examples. That was the problem, the app is running fine now, sends characters to the server.
Now I go further in studying the topic, then I have to improve the app and to add a lot of functionalities. I saw threads cannot directly work with GUI, I'll go study how to send data to the main activity or to others threads.
Thanks for the tip, I saved a lot of time knowing what to search for.
Here is the code of the working app, for those who are experiencing the same problem:

import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.net.UnknownHostException;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
 
public class MioClickListener implements OnClickListener {
	@Override 
 
	public void onClick(View view) {
	    new Thread(new Runnable() { 
	        public void run(){
	    		Socket socket;
	    		PrintWriter out;
	    		try {
	    			socket = new Socket("192.168.1.2", 2000);
	    			out = new PrintWriter(
	    					new BufferedWriter(
	    					new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream())),true);
	    			out.println("With threads, it finally works!");
	    			out.close();
	    			socket.close();
	    		} catch (UnknownHostException e) {
	    			e.printStackTrace();
	    		} catch (IOException e) {
	    			e.printStackTrace();
	    		} catch (Exception e) {
	    			e.printStackTrace();
	    		}
	        }
	}).start();
	} //onClick
 
} //MioClickListener

Bye!