c - Using sys/socket.h functions on windows

Question

I'm attempting to utilize the socket.h functions within Windows. Essentially, I'm currently looking at the sample code at https://beej.us/guide/bgnet/html/multi/clientserver.html#datagram. I understand that socket.h is a Unix function -- is there anyway I can easily emulate that environment while compiling this sample code? Does a different IDE / compiler change anything?

Otherwise, I imagine that I need to utilize a virtualized Linux environment, which may be best anyways as the code will most likely be running in a UNIX environment.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You have two options:

1. Use Cygwin (Unix emulation library).
2. Port to Winsock (Windows standard library).

Cygwin: lets you compile your Unix sources mostly untouched, but ties you to the Cygwin emulation library. This have two implications: general performance -no only network- will probably be less than optimal; and the target environment must have (at run time) the Cygwin DLL installed.

Winsock: this requires you to replace sys/socket.h (BSD sockets library, UNIX standard for the TCP/IP stack) with winsock2.h, and rewrite some parts of the code - not much, but some.

Some related questions with valuable info:

Differences between winsock and BSD socket implementations

Some Issues About Cygwin[Linux in Windows] (socket,thread,other programming and shell issues)

Examples for Winsock?