[Gambas-user] Socket Limitations

[Kadaitcha Man]

2010/1/3 Doriano Blengino <doriano.blengino at ...1909...>:

> after a timeout occurs, one can only assume that
> the entire write has failed, even if, in fact, some data has been
> succefully written.

Yes, you are quite correct, but the problem of partial data transfer
due to a timeout is not a problem for the socket to sort out. It is
for the server and client to sort out between themselves.

If you look at the sample code I attached earlier, there is this line:

Private Const MULTILINE_BLOCK_TERMINATOR As String = "\r\n.\r\n"

A CRLF "." CRLF sequence is the RFC3977 "termination octet". The
server knows it has not got the data that client said it is sending
until it gets the termination octet. If the socket goes quiet and the
termination block has not been received after a specific time interval
then the server closes the connection and discards the transaction.

Again, I fully agree with your thoughts up there, but I genuinely
question if it is a problem that the socket itself needs to be
concerned about. In my view, it does not and should not. The socket
only need alert the programmer to a timeout and try to gracefully
exit.

The socket shouldn't be taking care of network communications problems
where a properly signalling pair of entities should already have a set
of agreed rules to abide by when a transmission is incomplete.

Regards,