What is the difference between a port and a socket?

Question

This was a question raised by one of the software engineers in my organisation. I\'m interested in the broadest definition.

Answer 1

They are terms from two different domains: 'port' is a concept from TCP/IP networking, 'socket' is an API (programming) thing. A 'socket' is made (in code) by taking a port and a hostname or network adapter and combining them into a data structure that you can use to send or receive data.