Socket Service Providers

A protocol which wishes to provide socket services must be able to instantiate CServProviderBase-derived objects using CProtocolBase::NewSAPL(). These objects are used by the socket server to send data onto the network via the protocol.

In general, protocols are either connection oriented or connectionless. To a large extent this affects the meaning of many of a CServProviderBase-derived object’s member functions—these differences are pointed out in the reference documentation for the relevant functions.

The CServProviderBase class is used by the socket server to provide transport services to a single protocol. Several of the calls to CServProviderBase have pre-conditions attached to them—for example, a connection oriented protocol must have its local address set (either by a SetLocalName() or AutoBind()) before it is opened.

The MSocketNotify class is an abstract base class used by an CServProviderBase-derived object through its iSocket member to notify the socket server that various events have occurred. The MSocketNotify class provides several up-call member functions.