Efficient method for determining record based I/O on top of streaming protocols

Apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture for handling messages in a client-server environment. In general, computers of a client-server environment are configured with sockets to facilitate network communications. A socket of at least one of the computers is configured to recognize a format of a message to be received from another computer, whereby the socket is configured to handle receiving the message without invoking the application until the message is completely received. In general, the message may be formatted with a length field or terminating characters. In one embodiment, the socket utilizes a record definition to recognize the message format.