WSADATA

This structure is used to store Windows Sockets initialization data returned by a call to WSAStartup. It contains data about the Winsock.dll implementation.

At a Glance

Syntax

struct WSAData {
WORD wVersion;
WORD wHighVersion;
char szDescription[WSADESCRIPTION_LEN+1];
char szSystemStatus[WSASYSSTATUS_LEN+1];
unsigned short iMaxSockets;
unsigned short iMaxUdpDg;
char * lpVendorInfo;
};

Members

wVersion

Version of the Windows Sockets specification that the Windows Sockets DLL expects the caller to use. The high-order word specifies the minor version (revision) number; and the low-order word specifies the major version number.

wHighVersion

Highest version of the Windows Sockets specification that this DLL can support, usually the same as wVersion.

szDescription

Null-terminated string into which the Windows Sockets DLL copies a description of the Windows Sockets implementation, including vendor identification. The text—up to 256 characters in length—can contain any characters, but vendors are cautioned against including control and formatting characters. Typically, an application uses this description in a status message.

szSystemStatus

Null-terminated string into which the Windows Sockets DLL copies relevant status or configuration data. The Windows Sockets DLL should use this member only if the data might be useful to the user or support staff; it should not be considered as an extension of the szDescription member.

iMaxSockets

Maximum number of sockets which a single process can potentially open. A Windows Sockets implementation can provide a global pool of sockets for allocation to any process; alternatively it can allocate per-process resources for sockets. The number can well reflect the way in which the Windows Sockets DLL or the networking software was configured. Application writers can use this number as a crude indication of whether the Windows Sockets implementation is usable by the application. For example, an X Windows server might check iMaxSockets when first started: if it is less than 8, the application would display an error message instructing the user to reconfigure the networking software. This is a situation in which the szSystemStatus text might be used. Obviously there is no guarantee that a particular application can actually allocate iMaxSockets sockets, since there can be other Windows Sockets applications in use.

iMaxUdpDg

Size, in bytes, of the largest User Datagram Protocol (UDP) datagram that can be sent or received by a Windows Sockets application. If the implementation imposes no limit, iMaxUdpDg is zero. In many implementations of Berkeley sockets, there is an implicit limit of 8192 bytes on UDP datagrams, which are fragmented if necessary. A Windows Sockets implementation can impose a limit based, for instance, on the allocation of fragment reassembly buffers. The minimum value of iMaxUdpDg for a compliant Windows Sockets implementation is 512. Note that regardless of the value of iMaxUdpDg, it is inadvisable to attempt to send a broadcast datagram which is larger than the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) for the network.

The Windows Sockets API does not provide a mechanism to discover the MTU, but it must be no less than 512 bytes.

lpVendorInfo

Long pointer to a vendor-specific data structure. The definition of this structure (if supplied) is beyond the scope of the Windows Sockets specification.

Remarks

WSAStartup assigns the following values to the members of the WSADATA structure:

See Also

WSAStartup