How to implement infinite loop

Question

implementing IRC client (still). i have almost everyting but today i noticed, that there is one major problem.
i get all the data which server is sending to me, but if I do nothing but wait after displaying data it sent to me, my while(1) loop checks just once if there is any more data to receive and then stops. Starts again only if i type and send something, than after sending what i typed it checks if there s any data waiting on the socket and eventually displays it.
Which is obviously wrong, because in this situation i see messages that incame before, only if i send something.
This is my code:

while(1){    
  if((readReady = readReadiness(sockfd))==0){    //nothing to recv
          if(((writeReady = writeReadiness(sockfd))>0) && (readReady = readReadiness(sockfd))==0){  //sending is possible  
                (data sending part...)  
          }
          else
                continue; //if there s no data to read and cant send
          }
  else{         //if there s some data to recv() on the socket buffer 
          (parsing and receiving data part...)  
   } 
    continue;
}

readReadiness() and writeReadiness() use select() to check if there s any data to receive or possibility to send some.

Question is: how to make infinite loop that will repeat checking if there s any data to receive even if i do nothing ad infinitum. ? (while(1) stops checking until I send something again)
I tried to use fork(), but i dont know how to make it work and pool for data while still giving me possibility to send/receive and display it.

Answer 1

In your while(1) loop, you can "poke" the server for new content regularly. The response will update the content of your socket. This would triggers that there are data to recv() on the socket buffer...