TCP library

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

	From: 	Martin Wierich[SMTP:martinw@cs.kun.nl]
	Sent: 	Wednesday, January 27, 1999 11:25 AM
	
	In about two month, the Object IO library will contain a TCP interface.
	It will contain a synchronous and an asynchronous part.

Before you release anything, I'd ask you to look at the Unicon socket
interface.  Briefly:
	open(addr, "na")	Listen on a TCP socket (as a server)
	open(addr, "n")		Connect to a TCP socket (as a client)
	open(addr, "nau")	Listen on a UDP socket (as a server)
	open(addr, "nu")	Connect to a UDP socket (as a client)
where addr is
	host.name:port		port @ remote host
	:port			port @ local host
	file/name		UNIX domain socket, TCP only
open() is also used for opening ordinary files and devices;
with the "n" mode it returns streams that can be treated like other
non-seekable streams and are closed with the same close() as other stream.

There are also send() and receive() procedures for sending and receiving
datagrams.

gethost(host) returns an alias/address record for the specified host;
gethost() is effectively a stream of aliases/addresses records.
getserv(service, protocol) returns a name/aliases/port/protocol
record for that service; getserv() is effectively a stream of these
records.

I bring this up because the Unicon interface
- has already had a *lot* of discussion and design
- is remarkably straightforward to use
- has been or is in the process of being ported to Windows;
  as far as I know the only thing that gave trouble is fork(),
  which the TCP interface doesn't depend on.

See 
    http://www.drones.com/unicon/