6.4 Socket addresses (families)

The library supports both IP4 and IP6 addresses. On Unix systems it also supports Unix domain sockets (AF_UNIX). The address of a Unix domain sockets is a file name. Unix domain sockets are created using socket_create/2 or unix_domain_socket/1.

IP4 or IP6 sockets can be created using socket_create/2 or tcp_connect/3 with the inet (default, IP3) or inet6 domain option. Some of the predicates produce or consume IP addresses as a Prolog term. The format of this term is one of:

ip(A, B, C, D)

Represents an IP4 address. Each field is an integer in the range 0..255 (8 bit).

ip(A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H)

Represents an IP6 address. Each field is an integer in the range 0..65535 (16 bit).

The predicate ip_name/2 translates between the canonical textual representation and the above defined address terms.