hi all!

can anybody help me on this, please!!!

i'm using the commons-net package to connect to a switch by telnet, and
using the readUntil method to read the telnet output... it looks like
this:

------------------------------ readUntil ---------------------------

public String readUntil( String pattern ) {
try {
 char lastChar = pattern.charAt( pattern.length() - 1 );
 StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
 char ch = (char) in.read();
 int a = (-1);
 while( ch != (char) a ) {
 // System.out.print( ch );
   sb.append( ch );
   if( ch == lastChar ) {
     if( sb.toString().endsWith( pattern ) ) {
       return sb.toString();
     }
   }
   ch = (char) in.read();
 }
} catch(Exception e) {
 System.out.println(e.toString());
 e.printStackTrace();
}

return null;
}

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
so... the problem is, that if the pattern does not match any of the
output,
the method gets blocked... on (ch = (char) in.read();) inside the
loop...
it keeps waiting for the InputStream.read()...
dont know how to overcome this... tried to use sockedTimeout... like...
setting the socket timeout for the connection to 4 seconds, and
catching
SocketTimeoutException....
but is there any wiser solution to this???
thanks in advance!! appreciate!!!