How to check if a socket is connected/disconnected in C#?

Question

How can you check if a network socket (System.Net.Sockets.Socket) is still connected if the other host doesn\'t send you a packet when it disconnects (e.g. because it discon

Answer 1

As zendar wrote, it is nice to use the Socket.Poll and Socket.Available, but you need to take into consideration that the socket might not have been initialized in the first place. This is the last (I believe) piece of information and it is supplied by the Socket.Connected property. The revised version of the method would looks something like this:

 static bool IsSocketConnected(Socket s)
    {
        return !((s.Poll(1000, SelectMode.SelectRead) && (s.Available == 0)) || !s.Connected);

/* The long, but simpler-to-understand version:

        bool part1 = s.Poll(1000, SelectMode.SelectRead);
        bool part2 = (s.Available == 0);
        if ((part1 && part2 ) || !s.Connected)
            return false;
        else
            return true;

*/
    }