Platform SDK: Windows Sockets

WSPSocket

The WSPSocket function creates a socket.

SOCKET WSPSocket (
  int                    af,                               
  int                    type,                             
  int                    protocol,                         
  LPWSAPROTOCOL_INFOW    lpProtocolInfo,   
  GROUP                  g,                              
  DWORD                  dwFlags,                        
  LPINT                  lpErrno                         
);

Parameters

af: [in] Address family specification.
type: [in] Type specification for the new socket.
protocol: [in] Protocol to be used with the socket that is specific to the indicated address family.
lpProtocolInfo: [in] Pointer to a WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure that defines the characteristics of the socket to be created.
g: [in] Reserved.
dwFlags: Socket attribute specification.
lpErrno: [out] Pointer to the error code.

Return Values

If no error occurs, WSPSocket returns a descriptor referencing the new socket. Otherwise, a value of INVALID_SOCKET is returned, and a specific error code is available in lpErrno.

Remarks

WSPSocket causes a socket descriptor and any related resources to be allocated. By default, the created socket will not have the overlapped attribute. Windows Sockets providers are encouraged to be realized as Windows installable file systems, and supply system file handles as socket descriptors. These providers must call WPUModifyIFSHandle prior to returning from this function. For nonfile-system Windows Sockets providers, WPUCreateSocketHandle must be used to acquire a unique socket descriptor from the Ws2_32.dll prior to returning from this function. See section Descriptor Allocation for more information.

The values for af, type, and protocol are those supplied by the application in the corresponding API functions socket or WSASocket. A service provider is free to ignore or pay attention to any or all of these values as is appropriate for the particular protocol. However, the provider must be willing to accept the value of zero for af and type, since the Ws2_32.dll considers these to be wildcard values. Also the value of manifest constant FROM_PROTOCOL_INFO must be accepted for any of af, type and protocol. This value indicates that the Windows Sockets 2 application needs to use the corresponding values from the indicated WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure: (iAddressFamily, iSocketType, iProtocol).

The dwFlags parameter can be used to specify the attributes of the socket by using the bitwise OR operator with any of the following flags.

Flag	Meaning
WSA_FLAG_ OVERLAPPED	This flag causes an overlapped socket to be created. Overlapped sockets can utilize WSPSend, WSPSendTo, WSPRecv, WSPRecvFrom and WSPIoctl for overlapped I/O operations, which allow multiple operations to be initiated and in process simultaneously. All functions that allow overlapped operations also support nonoverlapped usage on an overlapped socket if the values for parameters related to overlapped operation are NULL.
WSA_FLAG_ MULTIPOINT_C_ROOT	Indicates that the socket created will be a c_root in a multipoint session. Only allowed if a rooted control plane is indicated in the protocol's WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure.
WSA_FLAG_ MULTIPOINT_C_LEAF	Indicates that the socket created will be a c_leaf in a multicast session. Only allowed if XP1_SUPPORT_MULTIPOINT is indicated in the protocol's WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure.
WSA_FLAG_ MULTIPOINT_D_ROOT	Indicates that the socket created will be a d_root in a multipoint session. Only allowed if a rooted data plane is indicated in the protocol's WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure.
WSA_FLAG_ MULTIPOINT_D_LEAF	Indicates that the socket created will be a d_leaf in a multipoint session. Only allowed if XP1_SUPPORT_MULTIPOINT is indicated in the protocol's WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure.

Important For multipoint sockets, exactly one of WSA_FLAG_MULTIPOINT_C_ROOT or WSA_FLAG_MULTIPOINT_C_LEAF must be specified, and exactly one of WSA_FLAG_MULTIPOINT_D_ROOT or WSA_FLAG_MULTIPOINT_D_LEAF must be specified. Refer to Protocol-Independent Multicast and Multipoint in the SPI for additional information.

Connection-oriented sockets such as SOCK_STREAM provide full-duplex connections, and must be in a connected state before any data can be sent or received on them. A connection to another socket is created with a WSPConnect call. Once connected, data can be transferred using WSPSend and WSPRecv calls. When a session has been completed, a WSPCloseSocket must be performed.

The communications protocols used to implement a reliable, connection-oriented socket ensure that data is not lost or duplicated. If data for which the peer protocol has buffer space cannot be successfully transmitted within a reasonable length of time, the connection is considered broken and subsequent calls will fail with the error code set to WSAETIMEDOUT.

Connectionless, message-oriented sockets allow sending and receiving of datagrams to and from arbitrary peers using WSPSendTo and WSPRecvFrom. If such a socket is connected by using WSPConnect to a specific peer, datagrams can be sent to that peer using WSPSend and can be received from (only) this peer using WSPRecv.

Support for sockets with type SOCK RAW is not required but service providers are encouraged to support raw sockets whenever it makes sense to do so.

Shared Sockets: When a special WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure (obtained through the WSPDuplicateSocket function and used to create additional descriptors for a shared socket) is passed as an input parameter to WSPSocket, the g and dwFlags parameters are ignored.

Layered Service Provider Considerations

A layered service provider supplies an implementation of this function, but it is also a client of this function if and when it calls WSPSocket of the next layer in the protocol chain. Some special considerations apply to this function's lpProtocolInfo parameter as it is propagated down through the layers of the protocol chain.

If the next layer in the protocol chain is another layer then when the next layer's WSPSocket is called, this layer must pass to the next layer a lpProtocolInfo that references the same unmodified WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure with the same unmodified chain information. However, if the next layer is the base protocol (that is, the last element in the chain), this layer performs a substitution when calling the base provider's WSPSocket. In this case, the base provider's WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure should be referenced by the lpProtocolInfo parameter.

One vital benefit of this policy is that base service providers do not have to be aware of protocol chains.

This same propagation policy applies when propagating a WSAPROTOCOL_INFOW structure through a layered sequence of other functions such as WSPAddressToString, WSPDuplicateSocket, WSPStartup, or WSPStringToAddress.

Error Codes

Error code	Meaning
WSAENETDOWN	Network subsystem has failed.
WSAEAFNOSUPPORT	Specified address family is not supported.
WSAEINPROGRESS	Blocking Windows Sockets call is in progress, or the service provider is still processing a callback function.
WSAEMFILE	No more socket descriptors are available.
WSAENOBUFS	No buffer space is available. The socket cannot be created.
WSAEPROTONOSUPPORT	Specified protocol is not supported.
WSAEPROTOTYPE	Specified protocol is the wrong type for this socket.
WSAESOCKTNOSUPPORT	Specified socket type is not supported in this address family.
WSAEINVAL	Parameter g specified is not valid.

Requirements

Version: Requires Windows Sockets 2.0.
Header: Declared in Ws2spi.h.