Sockets Implementation

Hello, I am a rookie faced with having to do a sockets implementation for
a project and I have come across a couple of varying philosophies on how
to implement the message exchange protocol for this. My needs are to be
able to transfer ASCII data messages (no binary data required). The
messages have a known terminating character (x07).  I am soliciting some
opinions on the correct/feasible approach: Thank you.



Philosophy 1
The sender is obligated to send a message length (ala a short integer)
followed by the message content. The receiver will then use the given
length to continue a receive loop until the entire message has been
received.


Philosophy  2
The sender sends out a stream of data with a known terminating character
and the receiver must continue to receive data until the terminator has
been received.

Other philosophies ???
???

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