Network programming. Determine end of message

Question

Linux buffers all received messages received on a socket. But before receiving, this messages had a beginning and an end. Linux writes this messages sequentially in the buffer, loosing therefore the information of the end of the message.

I know that in Linux I could use cmsg_header.But Windows does not offer send-/recvmsg() procedures. How do I determine the end of a message on the buffer platformagnostic?

Answer 1

I am not sure that TCP/IP connections are exchanging well delimited messages. Routers could fragment packets. (So cmsg_header could be unreliable).

All TCP/IP based protocols I know about (HTTP, SMTP, X11, RPCXDR) are handling message organization at the application level. Your application library need to know somehow when and when a "message" starts or ends.