Much (but not all) of the payload is described around pkt-lines.
A pkt-line is a variable length binary string. The first four bytes
of the line, the pkt-len, indicates the total length of the line,
in hexadecimal. The pkt-len includes the 4 bytes used to contain
the length’s hexadecimal representation.
A pkt-line MAY contain binary data, so implementors MUST ensure
pkt-line parsing/formatting routines are 8-bit clean.
A non-binary line SHOULD BE terminated by an LF, which if present
MUST be included in the total length. Receivers MUST treat pkt-lines
with non-binary data the same whether or not they contain the trailing
LF (stripping the LF if present, and not complaining when it is
missing).
The maximum length of a pkt-line’s data component is 65516 bytes.
Implementations MUST NOT send pkt-line whose length exceeds 65520
(65516 bytes of payload + 4 bytes of length data).
Implementations SHOULD NOT send an empty pkt-line ("0004").
A pkt-line with a length field of 0 ("0000"), called a flush-pkt,
is a special case and MUST be handled differently than an empty
pkt-line ("0004").
pkt-line = data-pkt / flush-pkt
data-pkt = pkt-len pkt-payload
pkt-len = 4*(HEXDIG)
pkt-payload = (pkt-len - 4)*(OCTET)
flush-pkt = "0000"
Examples (as C-style strings):
pkt-line actual value
---------------------------------
"0006a\n" "a\n"
"0005a" "a"
"000bfoobar\n" "foobar\n"
"0004" ""