Java Network Programming, Second Edition

Preface

Java™’s growth over the last five years has been nothing short of phenomenal. Given Java’s rapid rise to prominence and the general interest in networking, it’s a little surprising that network programming in Java is still so mysterious to so many. This doesn’t have to be. In fact, writing network programs in Java is quite simple, as this book will show. Readers with previous experience in network programming in a Unix, Windows, or Macintosh environment should be pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is to write equivalent programs in Java. That’s because the Java core API includes well-designed interfaces to most network features. Indeed, there is very little application layer network software you can write in C or C++ that you can’t write more easily in Java. Java Network Programming endeavors to show you how to take advantage of Java’s network class library to quickly and easily write programs that accomplish many common networking tasks. These include:

• Browsing pages on the Web

• Parsing and rendering HTML

• Sending email with SMTP

• Receiving email with POP and IMAP

• Writing multithreaded servers

• Installing new protocol and content handlers into browsers

• Encrypting communications for confidentiality, authentication, and guaranteed message integrity

• Designing GUI clients for network services

• Posting data to CGI programs

• Looking up hosts using DNS

• Downloading files with anonymous FTP

• Connecting sockets for low-level network communication

• Distributing applications across multiple systems ...