c# - networkStream.Read is blocking

Question

I'm writing a simple application which will connect with a server. However I want to send simple chat commands aswell (see Console.ReadLine below). However this script won't get to string Message = Console.ReadLine(); since it's blocked at bytesRead = clientStream.Read(message, 0, 4096);.

I want to continue this script, but if there's bytes incoming, it should process them (like it's doing now) and if no bytes are incoming, it should go through the script and wait for user input). How can this be achieved?

        TcpClient tcpClient = (TcpClient)client;
        NetworkStream clientStream = tcpClient.GetStream();

        byte[] message = new byte[4096];
        int bytesRead;

        while (true)
        {
            bytesRead = 0;

            try
            {
                // Blocks until a client sends a message                    
                bytesRead = clientStream.Read(message, 0, 4096);
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                // A socket error has occured
                break;
            }

            if (bytesRead == 0)
            {
                // The client has disconnected from the server
                break;
            }

            // Message has successfully been received
            ASCIIEncoding encoder = new ASCIIEncoding();

            // Output message
            Console.WriteLine("To: " + tcpClient.Client.LocalEndPoint);
            Console.WriteLine("From: " + tcpClient.Client.RemoteEndPoint);
            Console.WriteLine(encoder.GetString(message, 0, bytesRead));

            // Return message
            string Message = Console.ReadLine();
            if (Message != null)
            {
                byte[] buffer = encoder.GetBytes(Message);
                clientStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
                clientStream.Flush();
            }

Answer 1

You could try using the DataAvailable property. It'll tell you whether there's anything waiting on the socket. If it's false, don't do the Read call.