acceptreceive

Acceptreceive is a term used in computer networking to describe a synchronization pattern or primitive that combines accepting a new connection on a listening socket with receiving the first data payload from that connection in a single operation. The concept exists primarily in design discussions about high-performance or event-driven servers, where reducing the latency between connection establishment and initial data processing is desirable.

In a conventional TCP server, an application first calls accept to obtain a new connected socket, then proceeds to recv to read data. In an acceptreceive approach, the system or library would expose a primitive that returns both the new connection object and the first received data (if available) in one step or within a single event callback. The goal is to minimize windowed delays and race conditions between accepting a connection and reading its data, enabling a more streamlined event loop.

Implementation and patterns for acceptreceive are typically speculative or library-specific. It can be realized via kernel extensions, special system calls, or framework-level abstractions that provide a combined event such as “connection-ready and data-ready.” In asynchronous or non-blocking I/O frameworks, this might appear as a composite event or as a function that performs an accept immediately followed by a non-blocking read in the same tick of the event loop.

Limitations and considerations include lack of standardization, portability concerns across operating systems, and added complexity in error handling and buffer management. TLS/SSL handshakes, partial data, and back-pressure scenarios can complicate the pattern. As a design idea, acceptreceive remains more common in theoretical discussions and prototype libraries than in widespread production APIs.

See also: accept, receive, accept4, recvmmsg, non-blocking I/O, event-driven programming.