Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!sdcsvax!ucbvax!A.ISI.EDU!CERF
From: CERF@A.ISI.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: OOB problems, wisdom anyone?
Message-ID: <[A.ISI.EDU]22-Dec-87.11:35:55.CERF>
Date: 22 Dec 87 16:35:00 GMT
References: <302407.871221.JBVB@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 14


The intent of the URGENT indicator was to say where (at
what byte) in the datastream the URGENT data ended - 
the TCP level provided an absolute pointer (sequence
number reference) to the last urgent byte. If two
instances of urgent data were injected into the
data stream, the urgent indicator would flag the latest
of them, requiring the next level up to scan the data
stream from wherever the "next" input byte was to the
end of urgent data. No semantics was associated with
urgency. The translation into "how many bytes to read"
was not part of the TCP spec, as I recall it.

Vint