Creates a socket, an endpoint for communication, and returns a socket descriptor for the socket. This must be the first BSD IPC call used in the process. Both server and client processes need to create a socket with the socket() call.
Syntax
socket = socket(af, type, protocol)
int socket, af, type protocol;
Parameters
socket | Socket descriptor for the newlycreated socket. It is an integer |
| with a valid range of 0 to 30. |
| This socket descriptor is used in subsequent BSD IPC calls to |
| reference this socket. |
| If the call fails, a |
| variable errno contains the error code. |
af | Address family for the socket being created. It must be set to |
| AF_INET, for Internet address family. |
| The address family defines the address format used in socket |
| operations. The AF_INET address family uses an address |
| structure (sockaddr_in) of 16 bytes. Refer to •Address |
| Family Type" in Appendix D of the BSD IPC Reference Manual |
| for NSARPA/1000 and ARPA/1000 for more information. |
type | Type of socket being created. It must be set to SOCK_STREAM. |
| The socket type specifies the semantics of communication for |
| the socket. A SOCK_STREAM type provides sequenced, |
| reliable, twoway, connectionbased bytes streams. Refer to |
| •Socket Type" in Appendix D of the BSD IPC Reference Manual |
| for NSARPA/1000 and ARPA/1000 for more information. |
protocol | Underlying protocol to be used. 0 causes the system to choose |
| a protocol type to use. The default is tcp. |
420 Berkeley Software Distribution Interprocess Communication