Network programming

[Bender]

I know virtually nothing about how networking works, so this question is probably going to sound foolish:

In Java, is it possible to receive packages from a network connection? That is, can I receive one, and then look around in it at its data?

I'm curious about making a specialized application like Gamespy (www.gamespy.com), so I'd need to find a way to check with a known game server, and be able to get information like number of players, the map being used, and so on.

I'm sure it's possible with Java, but can anyone point me in the direction of how to do it? Thanks a lot.

[kmj]

Sure can; this is done with Sockets (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/).

Here's a whole class's worth of info on the subject; and I'm sure the professor still uses java...
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~ptt/courses/420/

Good luck!

[inkedmn]

~praise network programming