polling only on socket, or can there be a trigger?

[William Prothero]

Mark:
I’ve been following this thread with interest. Thanks for the code. Now I’m wondering how I might use this capability. Can I set up a multi-user game using this? I must have to somehow get the user’s ip address. There are probably samples in the Livecode examples library and I’ll search around for one.
Best,
Bill

> On May 9, 2015, at 10:54 AM, Mark Waddingham <mark at livecode.com> wrote:
> 
>> My sequence is that the client connects to the server, and then sends it
>> periodic messages.  On the initial connection, the server creates a
>> database connection and leaves it open (opening a database takes time
>> measured in hundreds of milliseconds).   The approach of opening and
>> closing a database on each transaction simply isn't a realistic option for
>> me.
> 
> All the socket commands can be used in a non-blocking, message-based way.
> 
> When you 'accept connections' you create a listening socket whose purpose is to wait for connections and then supply you with a 'normal' socket to talk to the client which connected. The listening socket will continue to persist after this (until you close it) continuing to wait for new connections from clients.
> 
> So an outline of an example (which assumes on receiving data from the client you need to send it something):
>  on startServer
>    accept connections ... with message "newClient"
>  end startServer
> 
>  on newClient pClientSocket
>    read from pClientSocket ... with message "clientDataReceived"
>  end newClient
> 
>  on clientDataReceived pClientSocket, pData
>    ... process pData ...
>    write ... to socket pClientSocket with pData with message "clientDataSent"
>  end clientDataReceived
> 
>  on clientDataSent pClientSocket
>    read from pClientSocket ... with message "clientDataReceived"
>  end clientDataSent
> 
> The idea here is that each time you get a 'newClient' message you have a newly named socket 'pClientSocket' which is the other end of the connection the client initiated. You can have as many of these client-connected sockets as you like, and independently read / write to them with messages sent when the action you request completes.
> 
> If you use the blocking form of the socket commands then (as they don't dispatch messages whilst blocking) you can basically only talk to one client at a time. The blocking form may well be fine for a client, if it is connecting to a server, interacting with some sort of linear protocol and then closing the connection; but for a server that wishes to handle multiple clients simultaneously it is a much better idea to use the messaging form.
> 
> Hope this helps,
> 
> Mark.
> 
> -- 
> Mark Waddingham ~ mark at livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
> LiveCode: Everyone can create apps
> 
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