Re: network process timeouts

[Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> OK... so I shouldn't bother? Or I'm approaching it wrong? I thought
> having a timeout in `make-network-process' was the right place for a
> global timeout per process, and then the underlying implementation can
> choose what to do with that parameter.

What would the timeout be for?  DNS resolution, socket connection, TLS
negotiation or protocol negotiation?  I think having a parameter for a
timeout for the first three would perhaps be nice if you're programming
synchronous network connection stuff (for instance if you're writing
something to probe hosts to see whether they're listening to a port),
but it's still not quite enough to be generally useful, I think?

If you look at, for instance, `url-retrieve-synchronously', it does an
asynchronous connection and then loops waiting for it to finish whatever
it's doing.  Adding a timeout to that function would just involve, well,
adding a timeout to that function, and it would not pass that timeout on
to the lower levels.

So in that use case it's not useful, but perhaps you see other use cases
where this is useful?

-- 
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   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no