ok, thanks for all the suggestions, gents, i clearly have more to read
on this.
i have discovered that the server will send a request for the heartbeat
ping if its almost timed out, so i use the length of the message to
determine what to do with it.
msg = sockobj.recv(1024)
if len(msg) == 158:
record the data
elif len(msg) == (34): # length of request for ping
ping the server
else:
yada yada.
each real message ( according to their docs ) should be exactly 158
bytes.
i know i need to look more into all of this.. but thanks for all of
your help
-shawn
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