How can I interrupt a ServerSocket accept() method?

Question

In my main thread I have a while(listening) loop which calls accept() on my ServerSocket object, then starts a new client thread and adds it to a Collection when a new client is accepted.

I also have an Admin thread which I want to use to issue commands, like 'exit', which will cause all the client threads to be shut down, shut itself down, and shut down the main thread, by turning listening to false.

However, the accept() call in the while(listening) loop blocks, and there doesn't seem to be any way to interrupt it, so the while condition cannot be checked again and the program cannot exit!

Is there a better way to do this? Or some way to interrupt the blocking method?

Answer 1

You can call close() from another thread, and the accept() call will throw a SocketException.