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Machine’s OS is standalone Windows Xp Pro with SP2 except whenever mentioned. Compiler used was Visual C++ 2003 .Net 1.1. Beware the codes that span more than one line. Program examples have been tested for Non Destructive Test. All information compiled for Windows 2000 (NT5.0) above and...

The story was discussed at Winsock introduction story.
Related functions, structures and macros used in the program examples have been dumped at Winsock structure & function 1 and Winsock structure & function 2.
Other related and required information (if any) not available in no. 2 can be found at MSDN & Visual C++ online reference.

Abilities:

Able to understand Winsock more implementation through the APIs and program examples.
Able to gather, understand and use the Winsock functions, structures and macros in your programs.
Able to build programs that use Microsoft C/Standard C programming language and Winsock APIs.

getsockopt()

Item	Description
Function	getsockopt().
Use	Retrieves a socket option.
Prototype	int getsockopt( SOCKET s, int level, int optname, char* optval, int* optlen);
Parameters	s - [in] Descriptor identifying a socket. level - [in] Level at which the option is defined. Example: SOL_SOCKET. optname - [in] Socket option for which the value is to be retrieved. Example: SO_ACCEPTCONN. The optname value must be a socket option defined within the specified level, or behavior is undefined. optval - [out] Pointer to the buffer in which the value for the requested option is to be returned. optlen - [in, out] Pointer to the size of the optval buffer, in bytes.
Return value	See below.
Include file	<winsock2.h>
Library	ws2_32.lib.
Remark	See below.
Table 1

Return Values

If no error occurs, getsockopt() returns zero. Otherwise, a value of SOCKET_ERROR is returned, and a specific error code can be retrieved by calling WSAGetLastError().

Error code	Meaning
WSANOTINITIALISED	A successful WSAStartup() call must occur before using this function.
WSAENETDOWN	The network subsystem has failed.
WSAEFAULT	One of the optval or the optlen parameters is not a valid part of the user address space, or the optlen parameter is too small.
WSAEINPROGRESS	A blocking Windows Sockets 1.1 call is in progress, or the service provider is still processing a callback function.
WSAEINVAL	The level parameter is unknown or invalid.
WSAENOPROTOOPT	The option is unknown or unsupported by the indicated protocol family.
WSAENOTSOCK	The descriptor is not a socket.
Table 2

Remarks

The getsockopt() function retrieves the current value for a socket option associated with a socket of any type, in any state, and stores the result in optval. Options can exist at multiple protocol levels, but they are always present at the uppermost socket level. Options affect socket operations, such as the packet routing and OOB data transfer. The value associated with the selected option is returned in the buffer optval. The integer pointed to by optlen should originally contain the size of this buffer; on return, it will be set to the size of the value returned. For SO_LINGER, this will be the size of a LINGER structure. For most other options, it will be the size of an integer. The application is responsible for allocating any memory space pointed to directly or indirectly by any of the parameters it specified. If the option was never set with setsockopt(), then getsockopt() returns the default value for the option. The following options are supported for getsockopt(). The Type column identifies the type of data addressed by optval.

For level = SOL_SOCKET

Value	Type	Meaning
SO_ACCEPTCONN	BOOL	Socket is listening.
SO_BROADCAST	BOOL	Socket is configured for the transmission and receipt of broadcast messages.
SO_CONDITIONAL_ACCEPT	BOOL	Returns current socket state, either from a previous call to setsockopt() or the system default.
SO_DEBUG	BOOL	Debugging is enabled.
SO_DONTLINGER	BOOL	If TRUE, the SO_LINGER option is disabled.
SO_DONTROUTE	BOOL	Routing is disabled. Succeeds but is ignored on AF_INET sockets; fails on AF_INET6 sockets with WSAENOPROTOOPT. Not supported on ATM sockets.
SO_ERROR	int	Retrieves error status and clear.
SO_GROUP_ID	GROUP	Reserved.
SO_GROUP_PRIORITY	int	Reserved.
SO_KEEPALIVE	BOOL	Keep-alives are being sent. Not supported on ATM sockets.
SO_LINGER	LINGER structure	Returns the current linger options.
SO_MAX_MSG_SIZE	unsigned int	Maximum size of a message for message-oriented socket types (for example, SOCK_DGRAM). Has no meaning for stream oriented sockets.
SO_OOBINLINE	BOOL	OOB data is being received in the normal data stream.
SO_PROTOCOL_INFO	WSAPROTOCOL_INFO	Description of protocol information for protocol that is bound to this socket.
SO_RCVBUF	int	Buffer size for receives.
SO_REUSEADDR	BOOL	The socket can be bound to an address which is already in use. Not applicable for ATM sockets.
SO_SNDBUF	int	Buffer size for sends.
SO_TYPE	int	The type of the socket (for example, SOCK_STREAM).
PVD_CONFIG	Service Provider Dependent	An opaque data structure object from the service provider associated with socket s. This object stores the current configuration information of the service provider. The exact format of this data structure is service provider specific.
Table 3

For level = IPPROTO_TCP

Value

Type

Meaning

TCP_NODELAY

BOOL

Disables the Nagle algorithm for send coalescing.

Table 4

For level = NSPROTO_IPX

Windows NT supports all IPX (Netware-obsolete?) options. Windows Me/98/95 supports only the following options:

IPX_PTYPE
IPX_FILTERPTYPE
IPX_DSTYPE
IPX_RECVHDR
IPX_MAXSIZE
IPX_ADDRESS

Value	Type	Meaning
IPX_PTYPE	int	Retrieves the IPX packet type.
IPX_FILTERPTYPE	int	Retrieves the receive filter packet type
IPX_DSTYPE	int	Obtains the value of the data stream field in the SPX header on every packet sent.
IPX_EXTENDED_ADDRESS	BOOL	Finds out whether extended addressing is enabled.
IPX_RECVHDR	BOOL	Finds out whether the protocol header is sent up on all receive headers.
IPX_MAXSIZE	int	Obtains the maximum data size that can be sent.
IPX_ADDRESS	IPX_ADDRESS_DATA structure	Obtains information about a specific adapter to which IPX is bound. Adapter numbering is base zero. The adapternum member is filled in upon return.
IPX_GETNETINFO	IPX_NETNUM_DATA structure	Obtains information about a specific IPX network number. If not available in the cache, uses RIP to obtain information.
IPX_GETNETINFO_NORIP	IPX_NETNUM_DATA structure	Obtains information about a specific IPX network number. If not available in the cache, will not use RIP to obtain information, and returns error.
IPX_SPXGETCONNECTIONSTATUS	IPX_SPXCONNSTATUS_DATA structure	Retrieves information about a connected SPX socket.
IPX_ADDRESS_NOTIFY	IPX_ADDRESS_DATA structure	Retrieves status notification when changes occur on an adapter to which IPX is bound.
IPX_MAX_ADAPTER_NUM	int	Retrieves maximum number of adapters present, numbered as base zero.
IPX_RERIPNETNUMBER	IPX_NETNUM_DATA structure	Similar to IPX_GETNETINFO, but forces IPX to use RIP for resolution, even if the network information is in the local cache.
IPX_IMMEDIATESPXACK	BOOL	Directs SPX connections not to delay before sending an ACK. Applications without back-and-forth traffic should set this to TRUE to increase performance.
Table 5

BSD options not supported for getsockopt() are as shown in the following table.

Value	Type	Meaning
SO_RCVLOWAT	int	Receives low watermark.
SO_RCVTIMEO	int	Receives time-out.
SO_SNDLOWAT	int	Sends low watermark.
SO_SNDTIMEO	int	Sends time-out.
TCP_MAXSEG	int	Receives TCP maximum-segment size.
Table 6

When using the recv() function, if no data arrives during the period specified in SO_RCVTIMEO, the recv() function completes. In Windows versions prior to Windows 2000, any data received subsequently fails with WSAETIMEDOUT. In Windows 2000 and later, if no data arrives within the period specified in SO_RCVTIMEO the recv() function returns WSAETIMEDOUT, and if data is received, recv() returns SUCCESS. Calling getsockopt() with an unsupported option will result in an error code of WSAENOPROTOOPT being returned from WSAGetLastError().
SO_DEBUG - Windows Sockets service providers are encouraged (but not required) to supply output debug information if the SO_DEBUG option is set by an application. The mechanism for generating the debug information and the form it takes are beyond the scope of this document.
SO_ERROR - The SO_ERROR option returns and resets the per socket–based error code, which is different from the per thread based–error code that is handled using the WSAGetLastError() and WSASetLastError() function calls. A successful call using the socket does not reset the socket based error code returned by the SO_ERROR option.
SO_GROUP_ID - This option is reserved. This option is also exclusive to getsockopt(); the value should be null.
SO_GROUP_PRIORITY - This option is reserved. Group priority indicates the priority of the specified socket relative to other sockets within the socket group. Values are nonnegative integers, with zero corresponding to the highest priority. Priority values represent a hint to the underlying service provider about how potentially scarce resources should be allocated. For example, whenever two or more sockets are both ready to transmit data, the highest priority socket (lowest value for SO_GROUP_PRIORITY) should be serviced first, with the remainder serviced in turn according to their relative priorities. The WSAENOPROTOOPT error code is indicated for non-group sockets or for service providers that do not support group sockets.
SO_KEEPALIVE - An application can request that a TCP/IP service provider enable the use of keep-alive packets on TCP connections by turning on the SO_KEEPALIVE socket option. A Windows Sockets provider need not support the use of keep-alive: if it does, the precise semantics are implementation-specific but should conform to section 4.2.3.6 of RFC 1122: Requirements for Internet Hosts - Communication Layers. If a connection is dropped as the result of keep-alives the error code WSAENETRESET is returned to any calls in progress on the socket, and any subsequent calls will fail with WSAENOTCONN. SO_KEEPALIVE is not supported on ATM sockets, and requests to enable the use of keep-alive packets on an ATM socket results in an error being returned by the socket.
SO_LINGER - SO_LINGER controls the action taken when unsent data is queued on a socket and a closesocket() is performed. See closesocket() for a description of the way in which the SO_LINGER settings affect the semantics of closesocket(). The application gets the current behavior by retrieving a LINGER structure (pointed to by the optval parameter).
SO_MAX_MSG_SIZE - This is a get-only socket option that indicates the maximum outbound (send) size of a message for message-oriented socket types (for example, SOCK_DGRAM) as implemented by a particular service provider. It has no meaning for byte stream oriented sockets. There is no provision to find out the maximum inbound–message size.
SO_PROTOCOL_INFO - This is a get-only option that supplies the WSAPROTOCOL_INFO structure associated with this socket.
SO_SNDBUF - When a Windows Sockets implementation supports the SO_RCVBUF and SO_SNDBUF options, an application can request different buffer sizes (larger or smaller). The call to setsockopt() can succeed even if the implementation did not provide the whole amount requested. An application must call this function with the same option to check the buffer size actually provided.

SO_REUSEADDR - By default, a socket cannot be bound (see bind()) to a local address that is already in use. On occasion, however, it can be necessary to reuse an address in this way. Because every connection is uniquely identified by the combination of local and remote addresses, there is no problem with having two sockets bound to the same local address as long as the remote addresses are different. To inform the Windows Sockets provider that a bind on a socket should not be disallowed because the desired address is already in use by another socket, the application should set the SO_REUSEADDR socket option for the socket before issuing the bind. Note that the option is interpreted only at the time of the bind(): it is therefore unnecessary (but harmless) to set the option on a socket that is not to be bound to an existing address, and setting or resetting the option after the bind() has no effect on this or any other socket. SO_REUSEADDR is not applicable for ATM sockets, and although requests to reuse and address do not result in an error, they have no affect on when an ATM socket is in use.
PVD_CONFIG - This option retrieves an opaque data structure object from the service provider associated with socket s. This object stores the current configuration information of the service provider. The exact format of this data structure is service provider specific.
TCP_NODELAY - The TCP_NODELAY option is specific to TCP/IP service providers. The Nagle algorithm is disabled if the TCP_NODELAY option is enabled (and vice versa). The Nagle algorithm (described in RFC 896) is very effective in reducing the number of small packets sent by a host. The process involves buffering send data when there is unacknowledged data already in flight or buffering send data until a full-size packet can be sent. It is highly recommended that Windows Sockets implementations enable the Nagle Algorithm by default because, for the vast majority of application protocols, the Nagle Algorithm can deliver significant performance enhancements. However, for some applications this algorithm can impede performance and setsockopt() with the same option can be used to turn it off. These are applications where many small messages are sent, and the time delays between the messages are maintained.

getsockopt() Program Example

The following code sample demonstrates the use of the getsockopt() function.

#include <stdio.h>

#include "winsock2.h"

void main()

{

// Declare variables

WSADATA wsaData;

SOCKET ListenSocket;

sockaddr_in service;

// Initialize Winsock, request Winsock 2.2

int iResult = WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2, 2), &wsaData);

if(iResult != NO_ERROR)

    printf("Error at WSAStartup().\n");

else

    printf("WSAStartup() is OK.\n");

// Create a listening socket

ListenSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);

if (ListenSocket == INVALID_SOCKET)

{

    printf("Error at socket()\n");

    WSACleanup();

    return;

}

else

    printf("socket() is OK.\n");

// Bind the socket to the local IP address and port 55555

hostent* thisHost;

char* ip;

u_short port;

port = 55555;

thisHost = gethostbyname("");

ip = inet_ntoa(*(struct in_addr *)*thisHost->h_addr_list);

// Try running this program on machine using live IP...

printf("\nIP address is: %s.\n", ip);

printf("Hostname is: %s.\n", thisHost->h_name);

printf("Address type: %i.\n\n", thisHost->h_addrtype);

service.sin_family = AF_INET;

service.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(ip);

service.sin_port = htons(port);

if (bind(ListenSocket,(SOCKADDR*) &service, sizeof(service)) == SOCKET_ERROR)

{

    printf("bind() failed.\n");

    closesocket(ListenSocket);

    return;

}

else

    printf("bind() is OK.\n");

// Initialize variables and call getsockopt().

// The SO_ACCEPTCONN parameter is a socket option

// that tells the function to check whether the

// socket has been put in listening mode or not.

// The various socket options return different

// information about the socket. This call should

// return 0 to the optVal parameter, since the socket

// is not in listening mode.

int optVal;

int optLen = sizeof(int);

if (getsockopt(ListenSocket,

    SOL_SOCKET,

    SO_ACCEPTCONN,

    (char*)&optVal,

    &optLen) != SOCKET_ERROR)

    printf("Initial SockOpt value: %ld\n", optVal);

// Put the listening socket in listening mode.

if (listen(ListenSocket, 100) == SOCKET_ERROR)

{

    printf("Error listening.\n");

}

else

    printf("listen() is OK. Socket in listening mode...\n");

// Call getsockopt() again to verify that the socket is in listening mode.

if (getsockopt(ListenSocket,

    SOL_SOCKET,

    SO_ACCEPTCONN,

    (char*)&optVal,

    &optLen) != SOCKET_ERROR)

    printf("Then, SockOpt value: %ld.\n", optVal);

else

    printf("Error getsockopt().\n");

WSACleanup();

return;

}

Sample output:

Figure 1

For IrDA Sockets:

The af_irda.h header file must be explicitly included.
Windows returns WSAENETDOWN to indicate the underlying transceiver driver failed to initialize with the IrDA protocol stack.
IrDA supports several special socket options:

Value	Type	Meaning
IRLMP_ENUMDEVICES	*DEVICELIST	Describes devices in range.
IRLMP_IAS_QUERY	*IAS_QUERY	Retrieve IAS attributes.
Table 7

Before an IrDA socket connection can be initiated, a device address must be obtained by performing a getsockopt(,,IRLMP_ENUMDEVICES,,) function call, which returns a list of all available IrDA devices. A device address returned from the function call is copied into a SOCKADDR_IRDA structure, which in turn is used by a subsequent call to the connect() function call. Discovery can be performed in two ways:

First, performing a getsockopt() function call with the IRLMP_ENUMDEVICES option causes a single discovery to be run on each idle adapter. The list of discovered devices and cached devices (on active adapters) is returned immediately. The following code demonstrates this approach.

SOCKADDR_IRDA DestSockAddr = {AF_IRDA, 0, 0, 0, 0, "SampleIrDAService"};

#define DEVICE_LIST_LEN   10

unsigned char    DevListBuff[sizeof(DEVICELIST) –

sizeof(IRDA_DEVICE_INFO) + (sizeof(IRDA_DEVICE_INFO) * DEVICE_LIST_LEN)];

int    DevListLen    = sizeof(DevListBuff);

PDEVICELIST      pDevList      = (PDEVICELIST) &DevListBuff;

pDevList->numDevice = 0;

// Sock is not in connected state

if (getsockopt(Sock, SOL_IRLMP, IRLMP_ENUMDEVICES, (char *) pDevList, &DevListLen) == SOCKET_ERROR)

{

        // WSAGetLastError

}

if (pDevList->numDevice == 0)

{

        // no devices discovered or cached

        // not a bad idea to run a couple of times

}

else

{

       // one per discovered device

       for (i = 0; i < (int) pDevList->numDevice; i++)

       {

            // typedef struct _IRDA_DEVICE_INFO

            // {

            //     u_char    irdaDeviceID[4];

            //     char      irdaDeviceName[22];

            //     u_char    irdaDeviceHints1;

            //     u_char    irdaDeviceHints2;

            //     u_char    irdaCharSet;

            // } _IRDA_DEVICE_INFO;

            // pDevList->Device[i]. see _IRDA_DEVICE_INFO for fields

            // display the device names and let the user select one

       }

}

// assume the user selected the first device [0]

memcpy(&DestSockAddr.irdaDeviceID[0], &pDevList->Device[0].irdaDeviceID[0], 4);

if (connect(Sock, (const struct sockaddr *) &DestSockAddr, sizeof(SOCKADDR_IRDA)) == SOCKET_ERROR)

{

       // WSAGetLastError

}

The second approach to performing discovery of IrDA device addresses is to perform a lazy discovery; in this approach, the application is not notified until the discovered devices list changes from the last discovery run by the stack. The DEVICELIST structure shown in the Type column in the previous table is an extendible array of device descriptions. IrDA fills in as many device descriptions as can fit in the specified buffer. The device description consists of a device identifier necessary to form a sockaddr_irda structure, and a displayable string describing the device. The IAS_QUERY structure shown in the Type column in the previous table is used to retrieve a single attribute of a single class from a peer device's IAS database. The application specifies the device and class to query and the attribute and attributes type. Note that the device would have been obtained previously by a call to getsockopt(IRLMP_ENUMDEVICES). It is expected that the application allocates a buffer, of the necessary size, for the returned parameters. Many level socket options are not meaningful to IrDA; only SO_LINGER and SO_DONTLINGER are specifically supported.

Further reading and digging:

Linux Sockets: Story and program examples.
Linux and TCP/IP.
A complete info on Windows socket reference from MSDN which include managed and unmanaged API doc.
Structure, enum, union and typedef story can be found struct, enum, union & typedef tutorial.
For Multibytes, Unicode characters and Localization please refer to Multibyte, Unicode and wide characters (Story) and Win32 Windows & Users tutorial (Implementation).
Windows data type information is Win32 - Windows data types.
Check the best selling C / C++ and Windows books at Amazon.com.

Tenouk C & C++ |< Winsock Prog. Example 6 | Main | Winsock Prog. Example 8 >| Site Index | Download | Linux Socket | Winsock in .NET

Tenouk C & C++ |< Winsock Prog. Example 6 | Main | Winsock Prog. Example 8 >| Site Index | Download | Linux Socket | Winsock in .NET

WINSOCK 2

WINDOWS SOCKET: PROGRAM EXAMPLES PART 7

getsockopt()

Return Values

Remarks

getsockopt() Program Example

Winsock Tutorial

Able to understand Winsock more implementation through the APIs and program examples.

Able to gather, understand and use the Winsock functions, structures and macros in your programs.

Able to build programs that use Microsoft C/Standard C programming language and Winsock APIs.

WSANOTINITIALISED

WSAENETDOWN

WSAEFAULT

WSAEINPROGRESS

WSAEINVAL

WSAENOPROTOOPT

WSAENOTSOCK

SO_ACCEPTCONN

SO_BROADCAST

SO_CONDITIONAL_ACCEPT

SO_DEBUG

SO_DONTLINGER

SO_DONTROUTE

SO_ERROR

SO_GROUP_ID

SO_GROUP_PRIORITY

SO_KEEPALIVE

SO_LINGER

SO_MAX_MSG_SIZE

SO_OOBINLINE

SO_PROTOCOL_INFO

SO_RCVBUF

SO_REUSEADDR

SO_SNDBUF

SO_TYPE

PVD_CONFIG

IPX_PTYPE

IPX_FILTERPTYPE

IPX_DSTYPE

IPX_EXTENDED_ADDRESS

IPX_RECVHDR

IPX_MAXSIZE

IPX_ADDRESS

IPX_GETNETINFO

IPX_GETNETINFO_NORIP

IPX_SPXGETCONNECTIONSTATUS

IPX_ADDRESS_NOTIFY

IPX_MAX_ADAPTER_NUM

IPX_RERIPNETNUMBER

IPX_IMMEDIATESPXACK

SO_RCVLOWAT

SO_RCVTIMEO

SO_SNDLOWAT

SO_SNDTIMEO

TCP_MAXSEG

Tenouk C & C++ |< Winsock Prog. Example 6 | Main | Winsock Prog. Example 8 >| Site Index | Download | Linux Socket | Winsock in .NET