Adding to what Kyriakos has said...

sprouting is more like something that turns your entire OpenFlow network into 
an L2 learning switch, so it behaves the same way -- if it doesn't know where a 
destination is, it floods the packet.

Why is this?  Well, because there might be a path between the source and 
destination and it just doesn't know it yet.  The only way it knows where 
anything is by seeing a packing FROM it and "learning" its position.  So if 
host A tries to send to host B, but host B hasn't sent anything yet... you have 
no idea where host B is.  The two may be connected; you just don't know it.  
You'd have to wait for host B to send something before you'd know where to 
direct the packets from host A.

By flooding the packet from host A, host B will hopefully get the packet and 
then respond.  Now you know where host B is and can install exact paths.

-- Murphy

On Jul 23, 2012, at 4:36 AM, 王健 wrote:

> Hello guys:
>        "Default routing component.  Listens for Flow_in_events and sets up 
> shortest path route from source to destination.  If no route betweent the 
> access point datapaths exists, broadcasts packet."  The sentence i saw in 
> src\nox\netapps\routing\sprouting.hh. My Question is why not drop this packet 
> if there is no route?

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