The Berkeley Unix mechansim for creating a virtual connection between prOcesses. SOckets interface Unix' s standard I/O with its network communication facilities. They can be of two types, stream (bi-directional) or datagram (fixed length destination-addressed messages). The sOcket library function sOcket() creates a communications end-point or sOcket and returns a file descriptor with which to access that sOcket. The sOcket has assOciated with it a sOcket address, consisting of a port number and the lOcal host' s network address. Unix manual page: sOcket(2). (1995-01-31)