Issues of socket programming can be wierd, so I'm looking for some comments.
In my python books I find exclusive use of socket.close(). From my other readings, I know about a "partial close operation". So, I figured it would be useful to post some code about how socket.close() has an implicit send in it and you can actually gain some clarity by being more explicit with the partial close which means splitting socket.close() up into socket.shutdown(1) and socket.close(). And got a response in essence saying, why bother, socket.shutdown, isn't useful. Here is my thinking: With a standard socket.close(), the client closes the socket immediately after the implicit send. This means the client assumes it was ok to actually close the socket, independant of how the server reacts to that last bit of data. To me that is an assumption you may not always want to make. If, instead, the client does a socket.shutdown(1) to say it is done sending, it can still recv and wait for the server to respond with either: 1)yep, I agree you finished sending or 2)I know you are done,and I got your data, but I do not think you are done To me these seem like a very useful distinction, since now if the client cares, it can find out if it's final communication did matter. It helps avoid what I call the princess bride phenomenon of #2: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." So, is this whole business with socket.shutdown mostly useless? So useless that I cannot find any mention of it in 2nd edition, Programming Python. john -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
