It might help to know what the nature of the data is that you wish to exchange with this protocol...

Going the XML route might indeed be a good idea. Can you leverage XML RPC or SOAP?

Your second idea is likely to be much more error prone and brittle. I wouldn't go that route. You might consider something similar to it though, especially if you anticipate the need (for debugging or otherwise) to connect to your server with, say, telnet and communicate in the protocol by hand. You might take a look at SMTP, for example.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

In reply to Re: Choosing a client/server protocol by sauoq
in thread Choosing a client/server protocol by Coruscate

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