Technical Reference: Communications, Volume 2

socket Subroutine

Purpose

Creates an end point for communication and returns a descriptor.

Library

Standard C Library (libc.a)

Syntax

#include <sys/socket.h> int socket ( AddressFamily, Type, Protocol) int AddressFamily, Type, Protocol;

Description

The socket subroutine creates a socket in the specified AddressFamily and of the specified type. A protocol can be specified or assigned by the system. If the protocol is left unspecified (a value of 0), the system selects an appropriate protocol from those protocols in the address family that can be used to support the requested socket type.

The socket subroutine returns a descriptor (an integer) that can be used in later subroutines that operate on sockets.

Socket level options control socket operations. The getsockopt and setsockopt subroutines are used to get and set these options, which are defined in the /usr/include/sys/socket.h file.

The socket applications can be compiled with COMPAT_43 defined. This will make the sockaddr structure BSD 4.3 compatible. For more details refer to socket.h.

Parameters

AddressFamily	Specifies an address family with which addresses specified in later socket operations should be interpreted. The /usr/include/sys/socket.h file contains the definitions of the address families. Commonly used families are: AF_UNIX Denotes the operating system path names. AF_INET Denotes the ARPA Internet addresses. AF_NS Denotes the XEROX Network Systems protocol.
Type	Specifies the semantics of communication. The /usr/include/sys/socket.h file defines the socket types. The operating system supports the following types: SOCK_STREAM Provides sequenced, two-way byte streams with a transmission mechanism for out-of-band data. SOCK_DGRAM Provides datagrams, which are connectionless messages of a fixed maximum length (usually short). SOCK_RAW Provides access to internal network protocols and interfaces. This type of socket is available only to the root user.
Protocol	Specifies a particular protocol to be used with the socket. Specifying the Protocol parameter of 0 causes the socket subroutine to default to the typical protocol for the requested type of returned socket.

Return Values

Upon successful completion, the socket subroutine returns an integer (the socket descriptor).

If the socket subroutine is unsuccessful, the subroutine handler performs the following functions:

Returns a value of -1 to the calling program.
Moves an error code, indicating the specific error, into the errno global variable. For further explanation of the errno variable see Error Notification Object Class in AIX 5L Version 5.2 General Programming Concepts: Writing and Debugging Programs.

Error Codes

The socket subroutine is unsuccessful if any of the following errors occurs:

Error	Description
EAFNOSUPPORT	The addresses in the specified address family cannot be used with this socket.
ESOCKTNOSUPPORT	The socket in the specified address family is not supported.
EMFILE	The per-process descriptor table is full.
ENOBUFS	Insufficient resources were available in the system to complete the call.

Examples

The following program fragment illustrates the use of the socket subroutine to create a datagram socket for on-machine use:

s = socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_DGRAM,0);

Related Information

The accept subroutine, bind subroutine, connect subroutine, getsockname subroutine, getsockopt subroutine, ioctl subroutine, listen subroutine, recv subroutine, recvfrom subroutine, recvmsg subroutine, select subroutine, send subroutine, sendmsg subroutine, sendto subroutine, setsockopt subroutine, shutdown subroutine, socketpair subroutine.

Initiating Internet Stream Connections Example Program, Sockets Overview, Understanding Socket Creation in AIX 5L Version 5.2 Communications Programming Concepts.