The Pocket Guide to TCP/IP Sockets - Softcover

Donahoo, Michael J.; Calvert, Kenneth L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1558606866 ISBN 13: 9781558606869

Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers In, 2000

Synopsis

Mastering the sockets interface is essential for computer network programmers and practitioners who want to learn how to write programs that communicate using the network. This book provides an introduction to socket programming.

About this title

Review

The explosive growth of the Internet is due in no small part to the sockets programming interface. This elegant API allows most any computer running TCP/IP, from palm computers to mainframes, to seamlessly communicate. The Pocket Guide to TCP/IP Sockets provides beginning and intermediate network programmers with a practical tutorial and reference guide. Instead of trying to break new ground, this book establishes modest goals and achieves them splendidly. It is a concise, high-quality resource for students and professionals.

This book targets accomplished C programmers who want to learn network programming. You are assumed to have a good working knowledge of basic IP addressing and network configuration--not much time is spent educating you on the fundamentals of networking architecture.

A highlight of this book is the solid sample code. Even for those who already write socket code, a brief refresher is always helpful, and this book delivers valuable client and server code for both TCP and UDP sockets. Although the samples are based on a Unix environment, it is a trivial matter to port most of the code to Microsoft Windows and the Windows Sockets interface (ported samples are also available directly from the book's Web site). No longer do you have to paw through a thick reference to find parameter lists for sendto() or accept(). More subtle issues--data alignment, network vs host byte order, and differing approaches to handling client connections--are also handled with ease.

Chapter 6 contains an under-the-hood discussion on TCP/IP implementation that will be useful to the more-advanced user, which explains possible deadlock conditions, discusses the TCP state diagram, and sheds light on how the operating system handles socket resources. These juicy nuggets are reason enough to keep this book handy, even after the thrill of your first successful network program subsides. --Pete Ostenson

Review

"I would recommend this book in my course- it is a very good, concise and well organised tutorial. I think the book like it is will be of great help."-Arian Durresi, Ohio State University, USA

Edition details

• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers In
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1558606866
• ISBN 13: 9781558606869
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 140