why select() always return 0 after the first timeout

Question

I have a problem about select function when I worked on a Linux socket program. The select function worked fine as the man page says if the client connected the server side in the time interval configured by the server. If the timeout happened, the select function will return 0 forever. At that time, I debug the client and find the client had connected to the server. But the select function still return 0. I have search this problem but found none helpful. Could someone know why select did like that? My linux version is RHEL5.4. Thank you for your help.

The code is illustrated below.

static const int maxLog = 10000;

int main()
{
    int servSock;
    signal(SIGPIPE, SIG_IGN);
    if((servSock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) < 0 )
    {
        printf("socket create fail\n");
        exit(-1);   
    }
    int val = 1;
    if(setsockopt(servSock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, &val, sizeof(val))<0)
    {
        DieWithUserMessage("setsockopt error");
    }

    struct sockaddr_in serverAddr;
    memset(&serverAddr, 0, sizeof(serverAddr));
    serverAddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
    serverAddr.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(INADDR_ANY);
    serverAddr.sin_port = htons(22000);

    if(bind(servSock, (struct sockaddr *) &serverAddr, 
                sizeof(serverAddr)) < 0)
    {
        printf("socket bind  fail\n");
        exit(-1);   
    }

    if(listen(servSock, maxLog) < 0)
    {
        printf("listen failed\n");
        exit(-1);
    }   

    fd_set read_set;
    FD_ZERO(&read_set);
    FD_SET(servSock, &read_set);
    int maxfd1 = servSock + 1; 
    std::set<int> fd_readset;

    for(;;){    
        struct timeval tv;
        tv.tv_sec = 5;
        int ret = select(maxfd1, &read_set, NULL, NULL, tv);       
        if(ret == 0)
            continue;

        if(ret < 0)
            DieWithUserMessage("select error");

        if(FD_ISSET(servSock, &read_set))
        {
            struct sockaddr_in clntAddr;
            socklen_t clntAddrlen = sizeof(clntAddr);
            int clntSock = accept(servSock, (struct sockaddr *) &clntAddr, &clntAddrlen);
            if(clntSock < 0)
            {
                printf("accept failed()");
                exit(-1);
            }   

            maxfd1 = 1 +  (servSock>=clntSock? servSock:clntSock);
            FD_SET(clntSock, &read_set );
            fd_readset.insert(clntSock); 
         }

    } 
}

Answer 1

The 'select()' function is frustrating to use; you have to set up its arguments each time before you call it because it modifies them. What you are seeing is a demonstration of what happens if you don't set up the fd_set(s) each time around the loop.