Does NetworkStream.DataAvailable see buffered data?

Question

Does NetworkStream.DataAvailable know whether the sender\'s send buffer is empty? Or does it simply indicate whether the receiver\'s read buffer has data? My assumption is t

Answer 1

If you are needing to know when the receiver has received all of the data for a particular message then you definitely need to length prefix.

I typically define a struct similar to this that goes out at the front of any binary messages i send.

struct Header
{
  int packetIdentifier;
  int protocolVersion;
  int messageType;
  int payloadSize;
}

The identifier lets you determine if you have a valid message of your protocol type. The version lets you revision your protocol. The message type is the type of message (ie: CommsOnline). The payload size is the size of the body of the message.