Lua and networking - possibly basic question

[Steve Kemp <steve@...>]

  I've been embedding Lua 5.0 into a lot of local applications 
 recently and find it very nice to work with.

  For some software I'm working with I'm looking to add basic
 networking facilities, similar to the primitives people
 are used to :

	connect
	read
	write

  (I have no need for the bind() or accept() primitives.)

  I'm comfortable with binding C/C++ functions to Lua and
 working with the language nicely.  Currently my problem
 is a lack of direct mapping between Lua types and C types.

  The standard network read() call, essentially, works like this:

	read( socket, buffer, bufferLength );

  This doesn't fit in nicely with Lua's string objects which
 is the most obvious fit on the Lua side.

  So I'm struggling to understand how to approach implementation
 I want to allow users to be able to do:

	socket = connect( "host", port );
	send( socket, "GET / HTTP/1.0\n\n" );
	header = read( socket );
	data = read( socket );
	close( socket );

  Clearly there is a failure here.  I can implement C/C++ reading
 function as:

	void readDataUntilTerminator( socket, terminator )
	{
	   char *data = NULL

	   while( read ( .. ) ) 
	   {
	      data = realloc( new Size );
	      if ( data contains termintor )
		return;
	   }
	}

  This would allow callers to say "read until the expected response
 occurs" - however it leaves a nasty DOS condition if the expected
 result fails to occur.

  How do other people approach this problem?  (In composing this
 mail I did a few searchs and see the existance of LuaSocket - this
 might help me, if I can embed it within my code.  Too soon to tell,
 but my natural reaction is to think that is overkill ...)

Steve
--
http://www.steve.org.uk/