Windows Sockets Application Development for Windows Mobile-based Devices
Windows Sockets (Winsock) is a programming interface that is based on the familiar socket interface from the University of California at Berkeley. Winsock includes extensions designed to take advantage of the message-driven nature of Windows CE, and is used to discover and use communications capabilities of underlying transport protocols.
Most Windows CE network communication passes through the Winsock interface. Windows CE .NET 4.1 and later supports Winsock 2.2 which provides easier access to multiple transport protocols.
A socket enables network applications access to data on a data network. A computing device may have only one physical connection to a network, but many sockets can use the one physical connection simultaneously.
Winsock client and server applications provide endpoints of communication for network applications. A server application executes, then it waits to receive a packet from the client application. Once communication is established, client and server applications can exchange data. A server application can handle multiple clients simultaneously.
Note Winsock client and server applications must be of the same socket type to communicate. For example, they must both be using byte stream sockets that use TCP, or they must both be using unreliable datagram sockets that use UDP.
In This Section
- Winsock 2.2
Provides information about Winsock 2.2 support in Windows CE, including the architecture, multiple transport protocols, overlapped I/O and event objects, name resolution, backward compatibility, and secure sockets. Also provides information about stream socket applications, User Datagram Protocol (UDP) Datagram Socket application, and Internet Protocol (IP) Multicast application, and creating an Infrared Winsock application. - Using WSAStartup to Initialize Winsock
Provides information about initializing Winsock. - Stream Socket Application
Provides information about creating server and client socket applications. - Creating an Infrared Winsock Application
Provides information about creating socket application over IrDA. - Creating a UDP Datagram Socket Application
Provides information about creating a datagram socket. - Creating an IP Multicast Application
Provides information about creating an IP multicast application. - Determining if a Network Connection is Present
Provides information about using Winsock to determine programmatically whether the local device is connected to a network. - Raw Sockets (PPC+SP)
Provides information about raw sockets support in Windows CE. - Winsock Service Provider Interface (SPI)
Provides information about the Winsock service provider interface (SPI), including socket creation and descriptor management, event objects, notification of network events, socket connections, socket I/O, shared sockets, and name resolution.
Related Sections
- Winsock Support in Windows CE
Provides information about Winsock support in Windows CE.
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