Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Typical properties of Protocols

It is difficult to generalize about protocols because they vary so greatly in purpose and sophistication. Most protocols specify one or more of the following properties:

  • Detection of the underlying physical connection (wired or wireless), or the existence of the other endpoint or node
  • Handshaking
  • Negotiation of various connection characteristics
  • How to start and end a message
  • How to format a message
  • What to do with corrupted or improperly formatted messages (error correction)
  • How to detect unexpected loss of the connection, and what to do next
  • Termination of the session or connection.

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