csocketsudpsendtorecvfrom

Formal Parameters difference between sendto() and recvfrom() in C


I am using recvfrom() and sendto() for receiving and sending UDP packets.

I have noticed that recvfrom() as last parameter requires a pointer to the variable storing the length of server address while sendto() requires the variable that stores the length of the client address.

Why there is this difference?


Solution

  • Since UDP is not connection based (there's not a connect(sd, ...) call in which you say: from now on all data related to socket descriptor sd will come from a well known IP-port couple), whenever you issue recvfrom() it will (try to) return you the address from where incoming data origins.

    It writes the address in src_addr buffer, if it is not NULL. This buffer is provided by the caller and its size must be specified setting addr_len parameter. It is passed by pointer because recvfrom(), after using it to limit the amount of data written in src_addr, will overwrite it with the actual address length. We can say that addr_len is an input-output parameter.

    The caller of sendto(), on the other side, will exactly know the destination address, so addr_len in this case is passed by value because is an input-only parameter.

    This information is clearly explained in the guide you linked in the question.