Re: [Freeciv-Dev] network byte order.

[David Pfitzner <dwp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nicolas Brunel wrote:
> 
>       i have tested network byte order patch.
> New server vs old client it works with capabilities.
> 
> New client vs old server same behaviour as previously.
> The client can connect but isn't added to the list of players.

Yes.

> Can we add a new packet of given length as
> 1111111100000000.
> The server will only accept client after receiving this packet.
> The first packet the client will accepted will be this one.

I don't think this helps, because we can't change old servers.
(If we could, we would just change them to 1.8.0! ;-)

Possible solutions:

- Do nothing.  Include in the docs/FAQ that connecting a 1.8.0
  client to older servers doesn't work.  I think the client can
  do "Game -> Disconnect" cleanly in this situation right?

- Have the client send an initial packet in the old style, 
  and then if the server responds in the old style, break off
  the connection.  This seems pretty ugly.  It means the code
  has to be complicated now and stay complicated well into the 
  future.

- Have the client break off the connection if it doesn't receive
  a reply from the server in a reasonable time.  This seems the
  best solution to me but I don't personally have a clear idea
  how to implement it.  (It may well be easy, I'm not sure.)

Regards,
-- David