The REXX Socket APIs

All the function calls mentioned in the previous section have their equivalent in the REXX socket APIs. The API for the OS/2 platform is either part of TCP/IP Version 3.0 as RXSOCK.DLL (which is included in OS/2 Warp Connect or OS/2 Warp V4) or can be found in the collection of IBM's employee written software (EWS). This EWS package is available from different locations in the Internet, e.g. from:

ftp.pc.ibm.com, file /pub/pccbbs/os2_ews/rxsock.zip
ftp.cdrom.com, file /os2/ibm/ews/rxsock.zip

The package contains a description of all available functions, so this tutorial will only list the functions that are used in the sample programs.

The same package (with exactly the same usage) is also included in Object REXX for Windows 95 and Windows NT.

The REXX/SOCKETS function package for VM was developed at the City University of New York and is available through different channels:

BITNET: TELL LISTSERV at CUNYVM GET RXSOCKET $PACKAGE
Internet: http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~troth/rickvmsw/rickvmsw.html for an overview of packages available from this server

The VM function package has many differences in the syntax used to work with sockets within REXX. The basic functionality however is the same as for the OS/2 and Windows packages. This tutorial will use the OS/2 implementation as a reference and list differences for the VM application at the end in a separate topic.

The general TCP/IP function calls used in the previous section translate into the following REXX socket library function calls:

TCP/IP function	REXX function	TCP/IP function	REXX function
socket()	SockSocket()	connect()	SockConnect()
bind()	SockBind()	send()	SockSend()
listen()	SockListen()	recv()	SockRecv()
accept()	SockAccept()	close()	SockClose()

This tutorial will also use the following functions from the REXX socket library:

SockGetHostByName() - resolve a TCP/IP alias to a dotted IP address.
SockGetHostId() - find out local dotted IP address.
SockGetPeerName() - find out address of communication partner.
SockShutDown() - shutdown and cleanup a socket before closing it.

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