What is a message boundary?

sockets networking tcp udp
KMC picture KMC · Mar 5, 2012 · Viewed 12.2k times · Source

What is "message bonudaries" in the following context?

One difference between TCP and UDP is that UDP preserves message boundaries.

I understand the difference between TCP and UDP, but unsure about the definition of "message boundaries". Since UDP includes the destination and port information in each individual packet, could it be this that gives message a "boundary"?

Answer

David Schwartz picture David Schwartz · Mar 5, 2012

No, message boundaries have nothing to do with destinations or ports. A "message boundary" is the separation between two messages being sent over a protocol. UDP preserves message boundaries. If you send "FOO" and then "BAR" over UDP, the other end will receive two datagrams, one containing "FOO" and the other containing "BAR".

If you send "FOO" and then "BAR" over TCP, no message boundary is preserved. The other end might get "FOO" and then "BAR". Or it might get "FOOBAR". Or it might get "F" and then "OOB" and then "AR". TCP does not make any attempt to preserve application message boundaries -- it's just a stream of bytes in each direction.

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