It's a problem if you work with iterators to deserialize the byte stream. Even
failing that, it's just sloppy programming. What happens in the future when new
fields are added to the version message? It's not a big deal to say that this
protocol version has X number of fields, that (higher) protocol version message
has X + N number of fields. Deterministic number of fields per protocol version
is sensical and how Bitcoin has been for a long time.
And yes, it was a problem for me that caused a lot of confusion why this byte
didn't exist in many version messages despite the standard saying it should and
the code in bitcoind indicating it should. Nowhere was this written. It doesn't
help other implementations to have an unclear behaviour that depends on some
magic from one implementation.
________________________________
From: Mike Hearn <m...@plan99.net>
To: Turkey Breast <turkeybre...@yahoo.com>
Cc: "bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net"
<bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 11:39 AM
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Missing fRelayTxes in version message
It has to be optional because old clients don't send it, obviously.
Why is this even an issue? There's no problem with variable length messages in
any codebase that I'm aware of. Is this solving some actual problem?
On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 12:30 AM, Turkey Breast <turkeybre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
That's me. I never said to make all messages fixed length. I said to make a
fixed number of fields per protocol. So given a protocol version number, you
know the number of fields in a message. This is not only easier for parsing
messages, but just good practice. I don't see why a 1 byte flag needs to be
optional anyway.
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
> From: Mike Hearn <m...@plan99.net>
>To: Turkey Breast <turkeybre...@yahoo.com>
>Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
>Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 9:48 PM
>Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Missing fRelayTxes in version message
>
>
>
>It's not a bug (although there was recently a change to make bitcoind/qt
>always send this field anyway).
>
>
>I don't know where Amir is going with BIP 60. Version messages have always
>been variable length. There's nothing inherent in the Bitcoin protocol that
>says all messages are fixed length, indeed, tx messages are allowed to have
>arbitrary data appended after them that gets relayed.
>
>
>
>On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 7:45 PM, Turkey Breast <turkeybre...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>See this BIP. I'm not sure if this is a bug or what, but it would be good if
>messages always had a fixed number of fields per protocol version.
>>
>>
>>https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0060#Code_Updates
>>
>>
>>This BIP details everything that needs to be done and proposes a protocol
>>upgrade.
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>This SF.net email is sponsored by Windows:
>>
>>Build for Windows Store.
>>
>>http://p.sf.net/sfu/windows-dev2dev
>>_______________________________________________
>>Bitcoin-development mailing list
>>Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
>>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>
>>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>This SF.net email is sponsored by Windows:
>
>Build for Windows Store.
>
>http://p.sf.net/sfu/windows-dev2dev
>_______________________________________________
>Bitcoin-development mailing list
>Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by Windows:
Build for Windows Store.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/windows-dev2dev
_______________________________________________
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
