Boost.Asio provides off-the-shelf support for the internet protocols TCP, UDP and ICMP.

TCP Clients

Hostname resolution is performed using a resolver, where host and service names are looked up and converted into one or more endpoints:

ip::tcp::resolver resolver(my_io_service);
ip::tcp::resolver::query query("www.boost.org", "http");
ip::tcp::resolver::iterator iter = resolver.resolve(query);
ip::tcp::resolver::iterator end; // End marker.
while (iter != end)
{
  ip::tcp::endpoint endpoint = *iter++;
  std::cout << endpoint << std::endl;
}

The list of endpoints obtained above could contain both IPv4 and IPv6 endpoints, so a program should try each of them until it finds one that works. This keeps the client program independent of a specific IP version.

To simplify the development of protocol-independent programs, TCP clients may establish connections using the free functions connect() and async_connect(). These operations try each endpoint in a list until the socket is successfully connected. For example, a single call:

ip::tcp::socket socket(my_io_service);
boost::asio::connect(socket, resolver.resolve(query));

will synchronously try all endpoints until one is successfully connected. Similarly, an asynchronous connect may be performed by writing:

boost::asio::async_connect(socket_, iter,
    boost::bind(&client::handle_connect, this,
      boost::asio::placeholders::error));

// ...

void handle_connect(const error_code& error)
{
  if (!error)
  {
    // Start read or write operations.
  }
  else
  {
    // Handle error.
  }
}

When a specific endpoint is available, a socket can be created and connected:

ip::tcp::socket socket(my_io_service);
socket.connect(endpoint);

Data may be read from or written to a connected TCP socket using the receive(), async_receive(), send() or async_send() member functions. However, as these could result in short writes or reads, an application will typically use the following operations instead: read(), async_read(), write() and async_write().

TCP Servers

A program uses an acceptor to accept incoming TCP connections:

ip::tcp::acceptor acceptor(my_io_service, my_endpoint);
...
ip::tcp::socket socket(my_io_service);
acceptor.accept(socket);

After a socket has been successfully accepted, it may be read from or written to as illustrated for TCP clients above.

UDP

UDP hostname resolution is also performed using a resolver:

ip::udp::resolver resolver(my_io_service);
ip::udp::resolver::query query("localhost", "daytime");
ip::udp::resolver::iterator iter = resolver.resolve(query);
...

A UDP socket is typically bound to a local endpoint. The following code will create an IP version 4 UDP socket and bind it to the "any" address on port 12345:

ip::udp::endpoint endpoint(ip::udp::v4(), 12345);
ip::udp::socket socket(my_io_service, endpoint);

Data may be read from or written to an unconnected UDP socket using the receive_from(), async_receive_from(), send_to() or async_send_to() member functions. For a connected UDP socket, use the receive(), async_receive(), send() or async_send() member functions.

ICMP

As with TCP and UDP, ICMP hostname resolution is performed using a resolver:

ip::icmp::resolver resolver(my_io_service);
ip::icmp::resolver::query query("localhost", "");
ip::icmp::resolver::iterator iter = resolver.resolve(query);
...

An ICMP socket may be bound to a local endpoint. The following code will create an IP version 6 ICMP socket and bind it to the "any" address:

ip::icmp::endpoint endpoint(ip::icmp::v6(), 0);
ip::icmp::socket socket(my_io_service, endpoint);

The port number is not used for ICMP.

Data may be read from or written to an unconnected ICMP socket using the receive_from(), async_receive_from(), send_to() or async_send_to() member functions.

Other Protocols

Support for other socket protocols (such as Bluetooth or IRCOMM sockets) can be added by implementing the Protocol type requirements.

See Also

ip::tcp, ip::udp, ip::icmp, daytime protocol tutorials, ICMP ping example.