question on the copy function and tcp ports

Hi .... I am pressed for the time so I hope others will explain better, but - You are using blocking synchronous mode. I don't like it. I think that scenario should be reversed and Rebol should teach users to think in async manner by default. But we have to accept what the situation actually is. Saying this, try following - go to your client console, press escape, and type "close port_client" - you will see server will print your "how are you" message. Why is it so? - In sync mode, 'copy on port simply blocks ... it waits either for time-out or till other side closes the connection. You can still read your message even in sync mode, but you either would have to know its length and use copy/part 1234, or simply read port by one char at a time, but even 'first and 'pick block, so I don't know how to efectively escape the loop even if I try following on server side ... port_serveur: open tcp://:8000 forever [ port_client: first port_serveur while [not none? data: first port_client][prin data] insert port_client "I am fine" close port_client ] Got to go, hope someone throws here async mode behavior. The basic is port: open/direct/binary/no-wait tcp ..... the most bug free behavior :-) Maybe you can ommit /binary mode ... That way, copy will not block, and the usage is e.g. as follows: while [wait port data: copy port][print data] - it is kind of an forever loop - wait is there to wait for data to arrive, copy copies them, but does NOT wait till other side closes connection or timeout occures ... How to escape it? With our device, I use e.g. following code ... port: open/direct/binary/no-wait tcp://12345:55 buffer: copy "" while [wait port data: copy port][ append buffer data if (length? data) == 1234 [break] ; because we wait for known amount of data ] close port cheers, -pekr-

It's the way network works. The copy will only return, when it is sure to have copied _all_ data from the port. Now, how do you tell, if you've got everything? The only way to be sure, is wait until the port is closed. So, the copy in your server waits until the client closes port, while the client waits until the server closes the port. A traditional deadlock scenario. Now, what can you do about it? Tell the server to _not_ wait until the client has sent all the data, like this: port_serveur: open/no-wait tcp://:8000 ; CHANGES HERE! -------- forever [ port_client: first port_serveur print copy port_client insert port_client "I am fine" close port_client ] Now, the 'copy just gets what it finds in the port, and returns it. But you don't know, if this is everything, the client sent you, just that it is some of it. To be sure you get everything, you need to do the copy in a loop, until copy returns an empty string (but beware, it might be a very slow connection, too, I guess). port_serveur: open/no-wait tcp://:8000 ; CHANGES HERE! -------- forever [ data: copy "" port_client: first port_serveur while [not empty? new-data: copy port_client][ append data new-data ] print data insert port_client "I am fine" close port_client ] ; No changes in the client code needed Of course, someone like Holger could have explained much better, I hope it helped, anyway. Ingo