DevShed starts a new series today with this look at some of the easier ways to work with low-level sockets in PHP.
With reference to using sockets in PHP, in this three-part series, I'll try to cover their most crucial aspects. I'll start with the basics, such as creating, opening and closing a socket. Then I will proceed to using advanced approaches, such as implementing socket servers. Of course, I'll accompany this material with numerous hands-on examples.
At the end of this series, you should be equipped with a good grounding in how to use and manipulate low-level sockets in PHP, in order to expand your existing background of network programming.
They start of at the basest level, an illustration of using the socket functions to connect to a port on the localhost. They explain each chunk of code before moving on to something slightly more complex - developing a simple web application. It's made up of two parts: the server from the previous example (taking a string and making it uppercase to return it) and the client that will send the string. This basic example is then enhanced by a "rebirth" into a class making the creation of the socket server as easy as making a new object.
