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Old 06-28-2009, 11:01 AM   #3 (permalink)
jamiemac2005
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Coventry, UK
Posts: 1,879
OS: Vista, various linux distros


Re: what is FTP & what does it do for you

Quote:
Originally Posted by dm01 View Post
Don't ask me how they work, because I don't actually know.
protocols 101: they all work and are sent in the same way[excluding secure socket connections] (client sends a request to a server, server replies in packets of data) but with different protocols different info is sent, on a basic level http looks something like this:

[HTTP Header]
[Doc/Server info]
[actual content]
[HTTP Footer]

It's my understanding that the HTTP Header is a fair bit larger than an FTP header, and server info is emmitted because only the IP is needed, also HTTP does a lot more packet error checking(which requires sending a basic checksum style byte)... Doesn't make a large difference looking at a single packet but when you think about the few bytes different for each packet of data over the entire file the data needed to send the file is a lot less over FTP...

I'm sure someone else will have a more in depth/better understanding of this than me but the general gist is there =] haha.
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