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From: gilstrap@pooh_corner.sbc.com (Brian R. Gilstrap)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: How to determine when a TCP connection has been broken?
Keywords: TCP, errors, detection, SunOS 4.1
Message-ID: <1990Dec4.161433.9662@swbatl.sbc.com>
Date: 4 Dec 90 16:14:33 GMT
Sender: usenet@swbatl.sbc.com (0000-news(0000))
Reply-To: gilstrap@pooh_corner.sbc.com (Brian R. Gilstrap)
Organization: Southwestern Bell
Lines: 18

A silly question I'm sure, but how does one determine if a socket
associated with a TCP stream has been broken by the other end performing
a close(2) (or any other reason for that matter)?  The man pages are confusing
and the network applications tutorial for SunOS 4.1 doesn't address this
issue clearly...as far as I can find.

Ideally, I'd like to peform some test on the socket, rather than being
forced to do a "read" or "write".  In other words, I'd like to be able to
determine the validity of the socket without being forced to do a read from
or write to the socket (the design of my application makes
this desirable).

I'd very much appreciate any info (e-mail, since this is probably trivial).

Brian R. Gilstrap
gilstrap@pooh_corner.tri.sbc.com
gilstrap@swbatl.sbc.com
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