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)