The space from which an address is drawn is referred to as a domain . There are several domains for sockets. Communication follows some particular style . Currently, communication is either through a stream or by datagram . Stream communication implies several things.
Communication takes place across a connection between two sockets.
Before beginning the communication, two processes execute a series of steps to ensure that both are ready to exchange messages. The result of this negotiation is a connection . The communication over a stream is reliable, error-free, and, as in pipes, no message boundaries are kept. Datagram communication does not use connections. Each message is addressed individually.