- From: Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+w3c@gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2010 13:54:18 -0500
- To: James Hopkins <james@idreamincode.co.uk>
- Cc: "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com>, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu>, Brad Kemper <brad.kemper@gmail.com>, www-style list <www-style@w3.org>
On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 1:28 PM, James Hopkins <james@idreamincode.co.uk> wrote: > As I said in my last email, I am unclear as to what an HTTP packet boundary > is. If you could provide me with a link which provides me with some more > information, that would be appreciated so I know for future reference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_(information_technology) When data is sent across the Internet, the sender splits it up into short packets (typically 1500 bytes or less), and the receiver reassembles the packets into a continuous message. The packet boundaries are arbitrary and can depend on the behavior of routers that happen to be in between sender and receiver. If a text node is split across two packets, apparently browsers will split it into two text nodes, at least sometimes. Obviously, having behavior change noticeably because of that would be a really bad idea, since it's not feasible to control where packet boundaries are. (I don't know why browsers split text nodes like this. I'd guess it's because they want to append text to the DOM immediately as they receive it, and want to append new nodes rather than altering existing ones. Sometimes there can be a considerable lag between successive packets, so just waiting for the whole text node to arrive might delay rendering a lot for large text nodes, I guess.)
Received on Monday, 4 January 2010 18:54:52 UTC