Timeout with write

[satish paranjpe]

Hi !
  I have a question regarding the write system call. I have a client
and a server model implemeted on Sun 4s . The server and the client 
communicate with write and read to the sockets after a connection
is established. My program works fine. The question I have is--
What happens if the client executes a write and for some reason
(say heavy traffic on the net) it takes a long time to reach the
server. Does the write system call report any timeout errors ?
Right now I schedule an alarm and catch it to determine that
the net is busy and the write has to be tried again . Is there a
better way of doing it ?
Please reply by email. 
Thanks

Satish. 

satish at lamont.columbia.edu