A socket is one endpoint of a two way communication link between two programs running on the network. The socket mechanism provides a means of inter-process communication (IPC) by establishing named contact points between which the communication take place. Sockets allow communication between two different processes on the same or different machines. To be more precise, it's a way to talk to other computers using standard Unix file descriptors. In Unix, every I/O action is done by writing or reading a file descriptor. A file descriptor is just an integer associated with an open file and it can be a network connection, a text file, a terminal, or something else. Socket are generally employed in client server applications. The server creates a socket, attaches it to a network port addresses then waits for the client to contact it. The client creates a socket and then attempts to connect to the server socket. When the connection is established, transfer of ...
