What does protocol mean?

An agreed set of rules for how messages are formed and exchanged, so that two programs understand each other.

Also written as: protocols

In a lesson

Two robots can only understand each other if they agree in advance what messages look like. That agreement is a protocol. It can be as small as "one word, then a number", and on this mat it is: the Guide answers next with an instruction like forward 30, right 25 or done.

Learn it

• Taught in 9.3 Protocols Talking to each other, Robot club

Used in

• F10.2 Network hardware and connections
• F10.5 Addresses and packets
• F10.7 Protocols
• F10.8 Layers
• F10.9 Project: reliable delivery
• F11.9 Project: secure the robot
• F13.9 Project: the revision robot
• 9.5 Taking turns
• A4.1 Graphs
• A5.7 Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm

and 11 more lessons.

All glossary terms