* Reads any available data into variable length string b$ (b$'s length is adjusted to the number of bytes read, so checking EOF is unnecessary) using the handle return value from [[_OPENCLIENT]], [[_OPENHOST]] or [[_OPENCONNECTION]].
* Reads an integer. If 2 bytes are available, they are read into x%, if not then nothing is read and [[EOF]](handle) will return -1 (and ''x%'''s value will be undefined) using the handle return value from [[_OPENCLIENT]], [[_OPENHOST]] or [[_OPENCONNECTION]].
==Communicating using unformatted/raw streamed data==
* Benefit: Communicate with any TCP/IP compatible protocol (eg. FTP, HTTP, web-pages, etc).
* Disadvantage: Streamed data has no 'message length', as such just the program deals with a continuous number of bytes in a row. Some messages get fragmented and parts of messages can (and often do) arrive at different times, due to the very nature of the TCP/IP protocol.
* The position parameter (between the commas) is not used in TCP/IP connections.
* The programmer must cater for these situations manually.