how to check for an internet connection

[skankest]

is there a way, through poco, to check to see if there is an internet connection. I'm pulling files from the net (using URIStreamOpener) while my program initializes but if the internet is down the code gets stuck looking for the files. I've tried a try, catch loop but the lack of internet doesn't seem to throw an exeption and therefor doesn't solve the problem.

any ideas?

[aderouineau]

Add a timeout and handle exceptions or error codes ?

You can also ping an anycast address. Why anycast ? Because it's more likely to stay in place for very long. You could resolve and ping f.root-server.net in your program for example.