Nope, much like 9p itself[1] the /dev/draw protocol[2] is a stream of (simple) binary records. And it’s not that the implicit separation is essential for parsin

Nope, much like 9p itself[1] the /dev/draw protocol[2] is a stream of (simple) binary records. And it’s not that the implicit separation is essential for parsing it, it’s that the servers don’t care to implement the additional buffering necessary in case a single message spans several read()s. (I still don’t remember whether I looked at one of the /dev/draw implementations or at one of the 9p implementations when I was curious about the fiddly buffering question, sorry.) [1] http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9_3rd_ed/5/intro http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9_3rd_ed/5/intro [2] http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9_3rd_ed/3/draw http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9_3rd_ed/3/draw