TCP is a stream-oriented protocol. Message boundaries are lost and fragmentation may occur at any time. It is useful to frame your data, ie establish a protocol layer on top of TCP.

A simple way to accomplish this is by prefixing your messages with their length: my $pkt = pack "n/a", $str; but line-based protocols are also common. Using readline could be tricky, though.

In any case, you'll want to buffer the stream. When a message is complete, rip it/them out of the buffer (unpack or split) and fire the message handler. Callback-driven logic will help you arrive at a clean, modular solution.

In reply to Re: how to control segmented messages in TCP chat client by Anonymous Monk
in thread how to control segmented messages in TCP chat client by thanos1983

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