TCP/IP Sockets in C

I Tutorial

1 Introduction

1.1 Networks, Packets and Protocols

1.2 About Addresses

1.3 Clients and Servers

1.4 What is a Socket?

2 Basic Sockets

2.1 Creating and Destroying

2.2 Specifying Addresses

2.3 TCP Client

2.4 TCP Server

3 Constructing Messages

3.1 Encoding Data

3.2 Byte Ordering

3.3 Alignment and Padding

3.4 Framing and Parsing

4 Using UDP Sockets

4.1 UDP Client

4.2 UDP Server

4.3 Sending and Receiving with UDP Sockets

5 Socket Programming

5.1 Socket Options

5.2 Signals

5.3 Nonblocking I/O

5.3.1 Nonblocking Sockets

5.3.2 Asynchronous I/O

5.3.3 Timeouts

5.4 Multitasking

5.4.1 Per-client Processes

5.4.2 Per-client Thread

5.4.3 Constrained-Multitasking

5.5 Multiplexing

5.6 Multiple Recipients

5.6.1 Broadcast

5.6.2 Multicast

5.6.3 Broadcast vs. Multicast

6 Under The Hood

6.1 Buffering and TCP

6.2 Deadlock

6.3 Performance Implications

6.4 TCP Socket Life Cycle

6.4.1 Connecting

6.4.2 Closing A TCP Connection

6.5 Demultiplexing Demystified

7 Domain Name Service

7.1 Mapping Between Names and Internet addresses

7.2 Finding Service Information by Name

II API Reference

Data Structures

sockaddr

sockaddr_in

Socket Setup

socket()

bind()

getsockname()

Socket Connection

connect()

listen()

accept()

getpeername()

Socket Communication

send()

sendto()

recv()

recvfrom()

close()

shutdown()

Socket Control

getsockopt()

setsockopt()

Binary/String Conversion

inet_ntoa()

inet_addr()

htons(), htonl(), ntohs(), ntohl()

Host and Service Information

gethostname()

gethostbyname()

gethostbyaddr()

getservbyname()

getservbyport()

For example code from the text, Winsock adaptations of text code, sample programming exercises and more, click on the grey "COMPANION SITE" button to the right.

Note: This title was formerly known as Pocket Guide to TCP/IP Socket Programming in C, ISBN 1-55860-686-6.

TCP/IP Sockets in C: Practical Guide for Programmers is a quick and affordable way to gain the knowledge and skills you need to develop sophisticated and powerful networked-based programs using sockets. Written by two experienced networking instructors, this book provides a series of examples that demonstrate basic sockets techniques for clients and servers.

Using plenty of real-world examples, this book is a complete beginner's guide to socket programming and a springboard to more advanced networking topics, including multimedia protocols.

Concise, no-nonsense explanations of issues often troublesome for beginners, including message construction and parsing. Comprehensive example-based coverage of the most important TCP/IP techniques-including iterative and concurrent servers, timeouts, and asynchronous message processing. Includes a detailed, easy-to-use reference to the system calls and auxiliary routines that comprise the sockets interface. A companion Web site provides source code for all example programs in both C and WinSock versions, as well as guidance on running the code on various platforms.

network programers, application developers, software engineers and computer science students studying networking