sockets/waiting

[norman at uxh.cso.uiuc.edu]

Is there a way to check how much data you have waiting
in a socket - so you know if a full message (fixed length
known in advance) has arrived. Esp. if you do not want to 
bother reading it unless you have a full message and would
rather do some processing in the meantime, on a cray for
instance.

Is it possible to receive partial length messages
even if the full messages are (say) only a few
dozen bytes long and are sent out together to you.
Should you be concerned about slow internet transmission
rates fouling up your design if message lengths were to
increase greatly. And messages start getting sent piecemeal.
Should one assume that there will be a natural length that
messages will generally arrive with at the sockets.

I realize my view of the socket interface is probably flawed. 
Any suggestions?

-Salman
e-mail: burkie at rigel.astro.uiuc.edu