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

Relative TCP/IP terminology which is what I assume is implied by the question. In layman's terms:

A PORT is like the telephone number of a particular house in a particular zip code. The ZIP code of the town could be thought of as the IP address of the town and all the houses in that town.

A SOCKET on the other hand is more like an established phone call between telephones of a pair of houses talking to each other. Those calls can be established between houses in the same town or two houses in different towns. It's that temporary established pathway between the pair of phones talking to each other that is the SOCKET.