iOS and OS X Network Programming Cookbook

Chapter 1. BSD Socket Library

In this chapter, we will cover:

• Finding the byte order of your device
• Retrieving network address information
• Performing network address resolution
• Creating an echo server
• Creating an echo client
• Creating a data server
• Creating a data client

Introduction

The Berkeley Socket API (where API stands for Application Programming Interface) is a set of standard functions used for inter-process network communications. Other socket APIs also exist; however, the Berkeley socket is generally regarded as the standard.

The Berkeley Socket API was originally introduced in 1983 when 4.2 BSD was released. The API has evolved with very few modifications into a part of the Portable Operating System Interface for Unix (POSIX) specification. All ...