Network Basics: TCP/IP

Python's networking modules primarily support TCP/IP

  • TCP - A reliable connection-oriented protocol (streams).
  • UDP - An unreliable packet-oriented protocol (datagrams).
  • Of these, TCP is the most common (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc...).

Both protocols are supported using "sockets"

  • A socket is a file-like object.
  • Allows data to be sent and received across the network like a file.
  • But it also includes functions to accept and establish connections.
  • Before two machines can establish a connection, both must create a socket object.
<<< O'Reilly OSCON 2000, Advanced Python Programming, Slide 84
July 17, 2000, beazley@cs.uchicago.edu
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