Read from socket: Is it guaranteed to at least get x bytes?

Question

I have a rare bug that seems to occur reading a socket.

It seems, that during reading of data sometimes I get only 1-3 bytes of a data package that is bigger than th

Answer 1

As far as I know, this behaviour is perfectly reasonable. Sockets may, and probably will fragment your data as they transmit it. You should be prepared to handle such cases by applying appropriate buffering techniques.

On other hand, if you are transmitting the data on the localhost and you are indeed getting only 4 bytes it probably means you have a bug somewhere else in your code.

EDIT: An idea - try to fire up a packet sniffer and see whenever the packet transmitted will be full or not; this might give you some insight whenever your bug is in your client or in your server.