Customer Reviews

TCP/IP Sockets in C: Practical Guide for Programmers (The Practical Guides Series)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is awesome. I've been writing tcp/ip sockets code for years and I've used all the standard reference books (Esp. the Stevens books) and they're great. Let me tell you, though, that I wish I had this book when I got started with TCP/IP programming. It's clear, it goes into sufficient detail to get you to understand what's going on, but not so much that you get lost.

I read in two pages of this book something that none of the other books showed, the 'pre-forking' server model which things like Apache use. None of my other books explain how this works, this does, clearly and concisely. Even though I own all the standards (TCP/IP Illustrated volumes 1, 2 and 3, and both editions of Unix Network Programming by Stevens) when I got a chance to thumb through this book (and it's sister book "TCP/IP sockets in java") I knew immediately I would be buying them.

Excellent. Just Excellent.

This book was recommended to me for one of my courses and I was very skeptical seeing the size. But after reading the book, I was extremely impressed.

If you are just into network programming, then this book teaches most of the basics needed to advance more deeply. The explanations are very good and all the code written in the book work :) If you are already familiar with the basics of TCP / IP, then you can finish this book in about a day or two.

I highly recommend this book for every network programming beginner. Please Note: This book is not a guide to C programming and you should be familiar with basic C data structures and pointers for understanding some of the code logic.

The reviews by the Amazon reviewers "Rebecca L Kuri" and "Erick & Janet Wagner" accurately describe my thoughts on "TCP/IP Sockets in C:..". I too waded through the "W.R. Stevens" books, "Internetworking with TCP/IP" Volumes I thru III, and a few other Unix socket books but did not find one that provided as much information in as short a time as this book.

"Bob Tribit's" negative review of this book is useful to people already familiar with network programming. He provides good reasoning on using the more thorough books of "W.R. Stevens", which are very useful in their context.

If you plan to do Windows socket programming you still might want to pick this book up as an initial reference, but the Winsock2 API's and data structures are different. The Winsock APIs still have the underlying data requirements for the standard IP protocols, which is why this might still provide useful information.

The other reviewers have it right: the book is a nice introduction to socket programming. All of the 'C' socket functions are there. Topics such as signals and multithreading are covered. The book is succinct but not simplistic.

Unix is assumed as the OS. Windows programmers will have to get the code from the authors' book site. In some cases there is no equivalent code.

But the authors are right. This book merely scratches the surface in terms of programming for the network.

I am taking my first networking course and the professor recommanded this book for its simplest guide to TCP/IP socket programming.

It is good because it gets beginners who are first in networking field (just like me) to be familiar with the basics in writing applications with TCP/IP sockets. However, you still have to have some essential knowledge of "C", such like pointers and struct used a lot in the sockets.

It is just a introduction to socket programming, but enough for you to have a glance at it. If you want a complete reference, or you have already had experience in socket programming, this book may not suit for you. After all, it is for novice. I recommanded Stevens's "UNIX Network Programming" if you want a further study. I dare to say it is the bible book in network programming.

This is a great book if you are looking for a decent introduction to the Sockets API or just a quick reference. Prior knowledge of C programming and networking concepts is required. It is very easy to read, and not overwhelming like the Stevens book. It covers TCP and UDP sockets as well as name resolution. Money well spent.

Although the book is a bit dated it definitely is a must have. I went from a complete network beginner to having a strong confidence in the basics of networking after spending two days reading this book. It is very similar in style as that of K&R in that it is short, to the point, and easy to read. This book covers all the basic networking models for clients and servers, and even at the end goes into more detail on how the packets are actually sent and how the sockets work at a more fundamental level. Even with the need to look up some of the new functions used that are compatible with IPv6, I still feel that buying this book was the best option I could have chosen.

If you're an experienced programmer and need to use sockets then this book is for you. It's a lot of meat and little fat. You will be using sockets within a day with this book. No fighting your way through a lot of fluff just to find one or two programming gems. This book give it to you straight. Well worth the money.

Haven't finished the whole book yet, but I feel like it pretty much gave me what I needed by page 102. Recently I was asked to help with a project for embedded FPGA programming. The programming IDE is Eclipse with Altera's NiosII plugin's.

The existing code base did not include any TCP/IP interface, so that has to be implemented. Luckily, the Nios-II platform ships with a simple example project to show the concept and programming style, it did not give too much insight for what is going on behind the scenes.

The project I am working is to create a Socket server interface to this FPGA with a defined application protocol and command set. Having not coded seriously C since graduate school, it started somewhat of a challenge. After a few weeks, I got the urge to understand what is going on behind the scenes.

Knowing what I know about networks, this book solidified and explained the concepts behind socket programming and helped me understand the program calls from the sample application. Step-by-step and clear concept explanation style is also appreciated.

In short, I would recommend this book to anyone who is tasked with creating a socket client/server interface in C language. As a final note, me and another seasoned C programmer co-worker did not get the "code fragment" on page xii, even though I typed and executed in the code in a compiler. We just scratched our heads thinking why anyone would write like that?... hmmm... There is probably a reason that we don't know. Overall good book, instructional, to the point, and as they say, practical. Would definitely recommend it, if you deal with sockets in C.

This book gives you an amazing jump start in socket programming, the language is very easy to understand and very clear.

All the examples just work!.

My only concern was that this book does not cover unix domain sockets and link layer sockets such as AF_LOCAL and AF_LINK.

I strongly recommend buying this book.

thanks,

Magesh.