Packets!?

[MrPinkPanther]

I'm really confused by the idea of packets. So lets say I have a client that sends my username "User=George" to the server and then it wants it to add it to User.txt and then recieve the list of Users in another packet. I know how to send and recieve packets I just don't get how to tell the server what to send back.

Could anyone help me please?

[Jahova]

So say you send the server User=George, what was the packet that asked you to send that (from server) and what is the packet you receive after you have sent that (from server).

[MrPinkPanther]

So say you send the server User=George, what was the packet that asked you to send that (from server) and what is the packet you receive after you have sent that (from server).

Basically I have no idea atall how packets work and I can't find an easy explination. I also don't know how to handle them on the server. I make a connection with the server and then what?

[Colin-Roberts]

say like client sends user=george enters room, the server gets that, and then sends it to every other open client. to tell the other client that george is in the room.

[Dentafrice]

Because it's not just about doing "User=George". Try something like this..

Client: @E|George| (@E being the enter packet, | being the start and end, and George being the username.).

Server: UL|George,Bill,Hill,Chill|

$packet = $_GET["packet"]; // get the whole packet.

$explode = explode('|', $packet);
$client_action = $explode[0];   // get the @E or whatever

$data = $explode[1]; // gets whatever is after the | and before the |  so example: @E|Dentafrice| would get Dentafrice

switch($client_action) {
    case '@E':
        // do the user thing here.
        echo "UL|" . $user->user_comma_list() . "|";
        break;
}  

[MrPinkPanther]

So if used PHP to "GET" the packet then does it automatically send the packets to everyone else connected to the server? How small are packets averagely aswell. So how large would a packet such as "Bob, zak, harry" be?

[Dentafrice]

So if used PHP to "GET" the packet then does it automatically send the packets to everyone else connected to the server? How small are packets averagely aswell. So how large would a packet such as "Bob, zak, harry" be?

No it doesn't automatically send it, I was just posting how the server could interpret it.

[kickerbat]

Packet = Transfers data from A to B (A = input | B = the output).
@FlyDuo - You would want to encrypt packets so it all depends and if you could hint us what it will be for etc etc.