Windows Sockets: Data PACKET socket

This article describes the data PACKET socket, which is one of the two available Windows Sockets types. (Another type is stream socket .)

The data PACKET socket supports two-way data streams, which cannot be delivered sequentially or repeatedly. Data reports are not guaranteed to be reliable either; they may not reach the destination. Data packets may not arrive in sequence and may be duplicated. However, as long as the record size does not exceed the internal size limit of the receiver, the record boundary in the data will be kept. You are responsible for managing order and reliability. (The reliability is usually good on the LAN, but it is not good on the WAN [WAN], such as the Internet .)

The data is reported as "no connection", that is, no explicit connection is established. You can send a data packet to a specified socket and receive a message from the specified socket.

An example of a Data PACKET socket is an application that keeps the system clock on the network synchronized. This explains an additional function of the Data PACKET socket, that is, to broadcast messages to a large number of network addresses in at least some settings.

In terms of record-oriented data, the data PACKET socket is superior to the stream socket. For more information about data reporting Sockets, see the Windows Sockets specification in Platform SDK.