Satoshi Client Sockets and Messages

The original bitcoin client uses a multithreaded approach to socket handling and messages processing. There is one thread that handles socket communication (ThreadSocketHandler) and one (ThreadMessageHandler) which handles pulling messages off sockets and calling the processing routines. Both of these threads are in net.cpp. The message processing routines are in main.cpp, however.

The socket thread reads the sockets and places data into a CDataStream associated with each node called vRecv. The Satoshi client uses C++ serialization operators >> and << to read and write to a CDataStream and then it uses generic routines to move the data between the streams and sockets.

The message thread reads and processes all messages from each node in sequence, and then it sends messages to each node that should be sent messages. That is all it does.

Specifically, ThreadMessageHandler2 calls ProcessMessages(), which is located in main.cpp, to pull messages off each node's socket and process them. Then it calls SendMessages(), which is also located in main.cpp to create and send any messages appropriate for each node.

ProcessMessages() attempts to find a message start signature in the vRecv stream. If it finds a message start, it deletes everything prior to the start. Then it reads the header, extracts the message type, and calls ProcessMessage on the message.

SendMessages() actually creates and sends messages; it does not just send preexisting queued messages. It goes through various maps looking for work to do and produces a message and calls PushMessage method of CNode to send the message. PushMessage queues outbound data in the vSend data stream. (See PushMessage() in net.cpp). The socket thread handler then pulls data off the vSend data stream and calls send on the socket to send the data.