[erlang-questions] Unbuffered/blocking gen_tcp send

[Matthias Lang]

Hi,

> Hi, is it possible to have gen_tcp:send block until the receiver has
> received the package using gen_tcp:recv? For instance if the sender
> transmits packages which takes long time to process for the receiver.

gen_tcp:send can't do this for you. More generally, TCP doesn't provide
that service. (And: TCP's interface upwards is streams, not packets. The
packets you get from the {packet, N} modes in gen_tcp are added by Erlang
on top of TCP)

> I've been experimenting with the buffer sizes but even setting to sndbuf
> and recbuf to 1 won't make gen_tcp:send to block, unless the packages
> are large (1Kb+).

> I guess it would be possible to manually implement flow-control by
> acknowledging each package but I would rather just have gen_tcp:send block.

You've got the right idea. TCP has flow control, but it can't be
controlled at the fine level you would like it to, i.e. down to
whether a given "packet" has been received by an application at the
other end or not. If you want that, you have to implement it yourself
on top of TCP.

Matthias