VinayHajare / chat-apps-in-c

Simple chat app implemented in C using Socket programming with different architectures.

🗨️ C Chat Applications Collection

This repository contains three different implementations of chat applications in C, ranging from simple to more complex. Each application demonstrates different networking concepts and chat functionalities.

📚 Table of Contents

1. 📁 Repository Structure
2. 💬 Applications
   • Simple UDP Peer-to-Peer Chat
   • Group UDP Chat
   • Peer-to-Peer Whatsapp style Chat
3. 🛠️ Building and Running
4. 📚 Dependencies
5. 🤝 Contributing
6. 📄 License

📁 Repository Structure

ChatApp/
├── Peer-to-Peer Chat APP/
│   ├── chat_server.c
│   └── chat_client.c
├── Group Chat APP/
│   ├── group_chat_server.c
│   └── group_chat_client.c
├── Peer-to-Peer WhatsAPP/
│   ├── chat_shared.h
│   ├── chat_server.c
│   └── chat_client.c
└── README.md

💬 Applications

Simple UDP Peer-to-Peer Chat

A basic client-server chat application using UDP sockets. This application demonstrates one-to-one communication between a server and a client.

Features:

• 🔄 Turn-based communication
• 🔌 Simple connection handling
• ✉️ Basic message exchange

Group UDP Chat

An extension of the simple UDP chat, allowing multiple clients to communicate in a group setting through a central server.

Features:

• 👥 Multiple client support
• 🔊 Message broadcasting
• 🆔 Client ID assignment
• 🚪 Join and leave notifications

Peer-to-Peer Whatsapp style Chat

A more advanced chat application mimicking some features of messaging apps like WhatsApp. It uses a central server for user management and message routing but allows direct communication between users.

Features:

• 📝 User registration and login
• 👤 Online user list
• 💌 Direct messaging between users
• 🔒 Basic error handling

🛠️ Building and Running

Prerequisites

• GCC compiler
• POSIX-compliant operating system (Linux, macOS, or Windows with WSL)
• pthread library

Compilation

Navigate to the directory of the chat application you want to build and use the following commands:

For Simple UDP Chat and Group UDP Chat:

gcc group_chat_server.c -o server
gcc group_chat_client.c -o client

For P2P-style Chat:

gcc chat_server.c -o server -pthread
gcc chat_client.c -o client -pthread

Running the Applications

1. Start the server:

   ./server

2. In separate terminal windows, start one or more clients:

   ./client

3. Follow the on-screen prompts to use the chat application.

📚 Dependencies

• Standard C libraries
• POSIX sockets
• pthread library (for P2P-style chat)

🤝 Contributing

Contributions to improve the chat applications or add new features are welcome! Please follow these steps:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a new branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

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Happy chatting! 💻💬🎉