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Full Discussion: UNIX domain sockets vs FIFOs
Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users UNIX domain sockets vs FIFOs Post 302179466 by Perderabo on Thursday 27th of March 2008 08:11:32 PM
Old 03-27-2008
They are not interchangable the way pipe() and socketpair() are. Compared to FIFO's, Unix domain sockets are a minor nightmare to use. Two programs can just open a FIFO and then they are talking. With Unix domain sockets, a server has to set up one unix domain socket and go through all the networking business. A client creates a temporary unix domain socket of its own and connects to the servers socket. The server then forks() and starts a conversation with the client. There is a lot of overhead including a fork() just to get the ball rolling. Ignoring the startup overhead, I'm not sure which can send data the fastest. I would go with the FIFO anyway.

But it's good to use Unix domain sockets at least once, so maybe you should do that. That will cure you forever from considering them again.
 

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SOCKETPAIR(2)							System Calls Manual						     SOCKETPAIR(2)

NAME
socketpair - create a pair of connected sockets SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> socketpair(d, type, protocol, sv) int d, type, protocol; int sv[2]; DESCRIPTION
The socketpair call creates an unnamed pair of connected sockets in the specified domain d, of the specified type, and using the optionally specified protocol. The descriptors used in referencing the new sockets are returned in sv[0] and sv[1]. The two sockets are indistin- guishable. DIAGNOSTICS
A 0 is returned if the call succeeds, -1 if it fails. ERRORS
The call succeeds unless: [EMFILE] Too many descriptors are in use by this process. [EAFNOSUPPORT] The specified address family is not supported on this machine. [EPROTONOSUPPORT] The specified protocol is not supported on this machine. [EOPNOSUPPORT] The specified protocol does not support creation of socket pairs. [EFAULT] The address sv does not specify a valid part of the process address space. SEE ALSO
read(2), write(2), pipe(2) BUGS
This call is currently implemented only for the UNIX domain. 4.2 Berkeley Distribution May 15, 1985 SOCKETPAIR(2)
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