I always wondered how HTTP knows when it has enough TCP segments in order to process a request or response.
Can someone give me more information about the process?
Thanks.
1 Answer
TCP creates a bilateral, serial path between the endpoints. All segmentation, packetization, windowing etc is hidden and abstracted away.
That way, HTTP or any other application protocol using TCP doesn't need to know or care how all that in between is done. A request is sent by a client and received by the server, just like with a serial interface.
On the application layer, HTTP detects the end of a request by an empty line (two pairs of CR/LF) - but that is off-topic here.
