Re: holding connections open: a modest proposal

Rick Troth (troth@rice.edu)
Thu, 15 Sep 1994 11:45:55 -0500 (CDT)

> > The server sends a binary stream in packets,
> > each packet prefixed with a 2-byte packet
> > length in network byte order. Packets can be
> > any convenient size from 1-65K bytes. The data
> > stream is terminated by a zero-length packet.
>
> ARG! What's with the 2-byte lengths!?
>
> Why in the world would you limit packets to 64K?

Chill, Darren.

I don't think he really meant to limit packets to 64K,
rather, segments (yeah ... that's the word ... yeah "segments").

I have reasons that would make me prefer the 2-byte length.
But the suggestion en-whole (zero length segment terminates, 2-byte
length, all of it) solves exactly >one< problem. Were we to add
real structure to the stream, we'd need something more complete.

> -- Darren

-- 
Rick Troth <troth@rice.edu>, Rice University, Information Systems