Stream a continuously growing file over tcp/ip

file stream continuous netcat
Grinner picture Grinner · Jun 3, 2010 · Viewed 7.2k times · Source

I have a project I'm working on, where a piece of Hardware is producing output that is continuously being written into a textfile. What I need to do is to stream that file as it's being written over a simple tcp/ip connection.

I'm currently trying to that through simple netcat, but netcat only sends the part of the file that is written at the time of execution. It doesn't continue to send the rest.

Right now I have a server listening to netcat on port 9000 (simply for test-purposes):

netcat -l 9000

And the send command is:

netcat localhost 9000 < c:\OUTPUTFILE

So in my understanding netcat should actually be streaming the file, but it simply stops once everything that existed at the beginning of the execution has been sent. It doesn't kill the connection, but simply stops sending new data.

How do I get it to stream the data continuously?

Answer

Freiheit picture Freiheit · Jun 3, 2010

Try:

netcat localhost 9000 < tail -f /path/to/file

Related questions

Fastest way to check if a file exist using standard C++/C++11/C?

I would like to find the fastest way to check if a file exist in standard C++11, C++, or C. I have thousands of files and before doing something on them I need to check if all of them exist. …

Read More
Save and load MemoryStream to/from a file

I am serializing an structure into a MemoryStream and I want to save and load the serialized structure. So, How to Save a MemoryStream into a file and also load it back from file?

Read More
Java : How to determine the correct charset encoding of a stream

With reference to the following thread: Java App : Unable to read iso-8859-1 encoded file correctly What is the best way to programatically determine the correct charset encoding of an inputstream/file ? I have tried using the following: File in = …

Read More