What is AF_INET, and why do I need it?

Question

I\'m getting started on socket programming, and I keep seeing this AF_INET.

Yet, I\'ve never seen anything else used in its place. My lecturers are not

Answer 1

Socket are characterized by their domain, type and transport protocol. Common domains are:

1. AF_UNIX: address format is UNIX pathname

2. AF_INET: address format is host and port number

(there are actually many other options which can be used here for specialized purposes).usually we use AF_INET for socket programming

Reference: http://www.cs.uic.edu/~troy/fall99/eecs471/sockets.html