Xref: utzoo comp.protocols.tcp-ip:3621 comp.protocols.iso:93
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!im4u!halley!bc
From: bc@halley.UUCP (Bill Crews)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip,comp.protocols.iso
Subject: Re: Transport Level Interface
Keywords: Transport Level Interface, TLI
Message-ID: <363@halley.UUCP>
Date: 22 May 88 09:01:38 GMT
References: <349@manta.NOSC.MIL>
Reply-To: bc@halley.UUCP (Bill Crews)
Organization: Tandem Computers, Austin, TX
Lines: 26

In article <349@manta.NOSC.MIL> gutman@manta.NOSC.MIL (Lewis M. Gutman) writes:
>A month or two ago I read something about the Transport Level
>Interface, being developed, I believe, at Bell Labs.  My 
>understanding was that it offered a standard interface to 
>tcp.  Can anyone shed any light on TLI?  Can anyone suggest
>a reference?  If TLI is not a software interface to tcp, can
>anyone tell me whether there is such a thing?  Reply directly,
>please.  

TLI is included in System V.3 from AT&T.  It is a library interface for network
transport services that is *very* similar to Berkeley sockets.  It is thus not
an interface to TCP specifically, but to any transport service.  It is both
very slightly better and very slightly worse than sockets.  Sun has committed
to supporting TLI as a part of its deal with AT&T for System V.4.  I don't
think anyone interprets this to mean that SunOS sockets will go away, however.
TLI is often linked with Streams, since they were introduced at the same time
and both deal with networking, but they are actually independent of each other.

I like the SVID, Issue 2, Volume 3 presentation of TLI better than the one in
the AT&T UNIX System V Network Programmer's Guide, myself.  One of the X/Open
books may refer to it as well; I don't remember for sure.

-bc
-- 
Bill Crews                   Tandem Computers        bc@halley.UUCP
(512) 244-8350               Austin, Texas           ..!rutgers!im4u!halley!bc