Sockets are bidirectional, providing a two-way flow of data between processes that may or may not have the same parent. … Pipes provide a similar functionality. However, they are unidirectional, and they can be used only between processes that have the same parent.

Are UDP sockets bidirectional?

Datagram sockets allow processes to use UDP to communicate. A datagram socket supports bidirectional flow of messages. A process on a datagram socket can receive messages in a different order from the sending sequence and can receive duplicate messages. … The socket type is SOCK_RAW .

What is Unix domain socket path?

UNIX domain sockets are named with UNIX paths. For example, a socket might be named /tmp/foo. UNIX domain sockets communicate only between processes on a single host. … Socket types define the communication properties visible to a user. The Internet domain sockets provide access to the TCP/IP transport protocols.