16.10 Datagram Socket Operations

This section describes how to use communication styles that don't use connections (styles SOCK_DGRAM and SOCK_RDM). Using these styles, you group data into packets and each packet is an independent communication. You specify the destination for each packet individually.

Datagram packets are like letters: you send each one independently with its own destination address, and they may arrive in the wrong order or not at all.

The listen and accept functions are not allowed for sockets using connectionless communication styles.

• Sending Datagrams: Sending packets on a datagram socket.
• Receiving Datagrams: Receiving packets on a datagram socket.
• Datagram Example: An example program: packets sent over a datagram socket in the local namespace.
• Example Receiver: Another program, that receives those packets.