| This chapter shows how to use sockets for programming network clients and servers. Advanced I/O techniques for sockets are described, including nonblocking I/O and control over I/O buffering. Tcl commands discussed are: socket, fconfigure, and http::geturl. Sockets are network communication channels. The sockets described in this chapter use the TCP network protocol, although you can find Tcl extensions that create sockets using other protocols. TCP provides a reliable byte stream between two hosts connected to a network. TCP handles all the issues about routing information across the network, and it automatically recovers if data is lost or corrupted along the way. TCP is the basis for other protocols like Telnet, FTP, and HTTP. A Tcl script can use a network socket just like an open file or pipeline. Instead of using the Tcl open command, you use the socket command to open a socket. Then you use gets, puts, and read to transfer data. The close command closes a network socket. Network programming distinguishes between clients and servers. A server is a process or program that runs for long periods of time and controls access to some resource. For example, an FTP server governs access to files, and an HTTP server provides access to hypertext pages on the World Wide Web. A client typically connects to the server for a limited time in order to gain access to the resource. For example, when a Web browser fetches a hypertext page, it is acting as a client. The extended examples in this chapter show how to program the client side of the HTTP protocol.  | The Scotty extension supports many network protocols. |
The Scotty Tcl extension provides access to other network protocols like UDP, DNS, and RPC. It also supports the SNMP network management protocol and the MIB database associated with SNMP. Scotty is a great extension package that is widely used for network management applications. Its home page is: http://wwwsnmp.cs.utwente.nl/~schoenw/scotty/
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