[rtcweb] Sending of zero-length messages over data channels

Justin Uberti <juberti@google.com> Wed, 23 July 2014 03:58 UTC

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From: Justin Uberti <juberti@google.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 23:58:01 -0400
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Subject: [rtcweb] Sending of zero-length messages over data channels
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In the existing data channel protocol, it's not possible to send
zero-length messages, because SCTP prohibits it.

While this may seem to be an academic point, it does represent a divergence
from WebSockets, and this difference could be meaningful to applications
who use empty messages for keepalives. Or maybe the Yo app.

Since we can't send a zero-length SCTP message, I propose we add a
PPID_EMPTY value or something similar to indicate a message with empty
content.