Returns an input stream for this socket.

If this socket has an associated channel then the resulting input stream delegates all of its operations to the channel. If the channel is in non-blocking mode then the input stream's read operations will throw an java.nio.channels.IllegalBlockingModeException.

Under abnormal conditions the underlying connection may be broken by the remote host or the network software (for example a connection reset in the case of TCP connections). When a broken connection is detected by the network software the following applies to the returned input stream :-

The network software may discard bytes that are buffered by the socket. Bytes that aren't discarded by the network software can be read using read.
If there are no bytes buffered on the socket, or all buffered bytes have been consumed by read, then all subsequent calls to read will throw an IOException.
If there are no bytes buffered on the socket, and the socket has not been closed using close, then available will return 0.

Closing the returned InputStream will close the associated socket.

Returns: an input stream for reading bytes from this socket.

Exceptions:

IOException if an I/O error occurs when creating the input stream, the socket is closed, the socket is not connected, or the socket input has been shutdown using shutdownInput()

@revised 1.4
@spec JSR-51