Does This Article Seem Accurate (.NET)??

[MikeAThon]

The main CodeGuru page has a new article on it, "Communicating over Sockets: Blocking vs. Unblocking" by Mark Strawmyer at http://www.codeguru.com/columns/dotn...le.php/c11649/

Putting aside the incorrect usage of socket terminology (i.e., "unblocking" should be "non-blocking"), does the article give good advice and good program samples. I do not use .NET, so I am uncertain. But here's one sample of code that is said to read an XML-formatted request inside a thread of a threaded server:

private void ProcessConnection(object stats)
{
   ConnectionInfo connection = (ConnectionInfo)stats;
   byte[] buffer = new byte[4000];
   System.Text.StringBuilder input =
      new System.Text.StringBuilder();
   try
   {
      while (true)
      {
         int bytesRead = connection.Socket.Receive(buffer);
         if (bytesRead > 0)
         {
            input.Append(System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.
                         GetString(buffer));

            // Parse the message
            XmlDocument xmlInput = new XmlDocument();
            xmlInput.LoadXml(input.ToString());

            // Send back a preset response based on the type
            XmlDocument xmlOutput = new XmlDocument();
            if (xmlInput.DocumentElement.Name.Equals("uptime"))
            {
               xmlOutput.Load(@"C:\uptimeresponse.xml");
            }
            else
            {
               // Logic to generate desired exception here
            }
            connection.Socket.Send(System.Text.Encoding.
                                   ASCII.GetBytes(
                                    xmlOutput.DocumentElement.
                                    OuterXml));
         }
         else if (bytesRead == 0) return;
      }
   }
   catch (SocketException socketExec)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("Socket exception: " +
                        socketExec.SocketErrorCode);
   }
   catch (Exception exception)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("Exception: " + exception);
   }
   finally
   {
      connection.Socket.Close();
      lock (this.connections)
         this.connections.Remove(connection);
   }
}

To me, this code will fail because it assumes that the call to Socket.Receive will receive a complete XML request, whereas it might not.

Comments?

[wildfrog]

To me, this code will fail because it assumes that the call to Socket.Receive will receive a complete XML request, whereas it might not.

I agree. Another thing is that a 'partial' XML request might still be valid XML document. A document can contain Processing Instructions after the root element and according to the spec they MUST be preserved.

- petter