Sending and recieving information from a server simultaneously

[program]

I'm trying to design a chat client that will be able to send messages to a server and receive messages simultaneously. Here is pseudo-code for what I have so far:

while(true){
System.out.print("What do you want to write to the server?:");
userInput = reader.readLine(); //line 3
writeToServer(userInput);

messagesFromServer = getServerMessages;
System.out.println("Server: "+messagesFromServer);
}

My problem is that my program will pause and wait for user input at line 3, and therefore messages from the server will not continuously stream in. My question: how can I design my chat client so that messages from the server are still displayed even when the program is waiting for user input?

[Fubarable]

Using separate threads comes immediately to mind.

[program]

Thanks for the reply. I'll read up on using separate threads in java

[Fubarable]

Thanks for the reply. I'll read up on using separate threads in java

You won't be sorry that you did. There are several tutorials about sending info via sockets that demonstrate how to do this using separate threads, and Google will help you find them. Best of luck.