Thread: Socket Programming

Originally Posted by sumit.tejas02

I want to create a socket that can serve all the network protocols.

I suspect you don't have a clear knowledge on networking .....
There are several kinds of "network socket", the most common are:
- datagram sockets (UDP)
- stream sockets (TCP).
In Java the respective classes are java.net.DatagramSocket and java.net.Socket.

But on "top" of these sockets, there are a moltitude of "applicative" protocols, such as HTTP, FTP, SMTP and many others, more typically on top of TCP.
If you implement an HTTP protocol .... you are not implementing FTP or SMTP!!

So the phrase "that can serve all the network protocols" has very little/no sense.

Originally Posted by sumit.tejas02

But I want to create only one socket which can be used for not all the protocols but some of the standard protocols.
So I just wanted to know that is there any way to create such type of socket. Is it possible in java ?

Here I speak only about TCP sockets (which are more common and useful). A TCP socket (in Java java.net.Socket / java.net.ServerSocket) is only the "bottom" level at which you can establish a "long" communication with another socket somewhere on the net.

It's exactly like the telephone line. The connection between two sockets is very very like two telephones that, upon a call from one end, the telephone company puts in communication allocating some resources for the time of the entire communication (until one end closes it). Then what you do with this established communication ..... is another story. One person can only listen, or answer to the other person only one time, or both can talk each other continuously. This is the "applicative" protocol! And this is what happens for applicative networking protocols like HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc...

The opening of a socket for an HTTP communication is not very different from the opening of a socket for an FTP communication. Just only the port number changes (and the address, obviously). What changes is the all rest, the format of the informations and the logic, timings, sequences to exchange them.
If you are developing an HTTP "client" (or a "server"), for example, you are not implementing (and it wouldn't have sense) an FTP client or server!
Have you understood?