setConnectTimeout

setConnectTimeout is a method used to specify the maximum time, in milliseconds, allowed to establish a connection to a remote host. It is commonly found in networking APIs such as Java’s HttpURLConnection and related HTTP client libraries, and serves as a safeguard against long hangs when a server is unreachable or network conditions are poor.

The timeout applies to the initial connection attempt. It does not govern data transfer once the connection is established; that is controlled by a separate read or write timeout. A value of 0 typically means no timeout (i.e., wait indefinitely), though exact behavior can depend on the specific API implementation.

If the connection cannot be established within the specified time, the operation will fail with a timeout exception. In Java’s standard library, this often manifests as a java.net.SocketTimeoutException with a message indicating a connect timeout. Different frameworks may raise slightly different exception types, but the concept is the same: the connect attempt timed out before completion.

Usage example (in Java):

conn.setConnectTimeout(5000);

conn.setReadTimeout(10000);

Here, the client will wait up to 5 seconds to establish the connection, and up to 10 seconds for reading data after the connection is established.

Related concepts include read timeout (how long to wait for data to be available after the connection is made) and write timeout (time to send data). Some libraries offer their own naming or builders for these settings, such as HttpClient’s connectTimeout in modern Java or OkHttpClient.Builder.connectTimeout.