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Client behavior when server doesn't close connection?

Petite Abeille petite.abeille at gmail.com

Thu Jul 9 13:52:11 BST 2020

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On Jul 9, 2020, at 14:27, juhani <juhani at envs.net> wrote:
the working sites the last packet from the server had FIN flag, and on the failing sites it didn't.

In principle, the server MUST close the connection. Gemini doesn't have the concept of persistent connection, or content length, or chunking, or what not. Nothing but close.

If the server doesn't explicitly close the connection, then the client is toast, as there is no other mechanism to indicate end-of-transmission.

but what should the client do if it cant be sure it has the complete payload?

Pray. Punt. Apply any random heuristics you see fit. But really, no close, no cigar.

With line based content it's possible to show what you've got. The clients I've tried, so far, seem to do that, but is it correct?

It's a heuristic. Your milage may vary. The short of it is that there is no mechanism to indicate anything aside from the server cleanly closing the connection.

And what about binary content?

Use a different protocol.