send function (winsock2.h)
The send function sends data on a connected socket.
Syntax
int WSAAPI send(
[in] SOCKET s,
[in] const char *buf,
[in] int len,
[in] int flags
);
Parameters
[in] s
A descriptor identifying a connected socket.
[in] buf
A pointer to a buffer containing the data to be transmitted.
[in] len
The length, in bytes, of the data in buffer pointed to by the buf parameter.
[in] flags
A set of flags that specify the way in which the call is made. This parameter is constructed by using the bitwise OR operator with any of the following values.
Return value
If no error occurs, send returns the total number of bytes sent, which can be less than the number requested to be sent in the len parameter. Otherwise, a value of SOCKET_ERROR is returned, and a specific error code can be retrieved by calling WSAGetLastError.
| Error code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| A successful WSAStartup call must occur before using this function. | |
| The network subsystem has failed. | |
| The requested address is a broadcast address, but the appropriate flag was not set. Call setsockopt with the SO_BROADCAST socket option to enable use of the broadcast address. | |
| A blocking Windows Sockets 1.1 call was canceled through WSACancelBlockingCall. | |
| A blocking Windows Sockets 1.1 call is in progress, or the service provider is still processing a callback function. | |
| The buf parameter is not completely contained in a valid part of the user address space. | |
| The connection has been broken due to the keep-alive activity detecting a failure while the operation was in progress. | |
| No buffer space is available. | |
| The socket is not connected. | |
| The descriptor is not a socket. | |
| MSG_OOB was specified, but the socket is not stream-style such as type SOCK_STREAM, OOB data is not supported in the communication domain associated with this socket, or the socket is unidirectional and supports only receive operations. | |
| The socket has been shut down; it is not possible to send on a socket after shutdown has been invoked with how set to SD_SEND or SD_BOTH. | |
| The socket is marked as nonblocking and the requested operation would block. | |
| The socket is message oriented, and the message is larger than the maximum supported by the underlying transport. | |
| The remote host cannot be reached from this host at this time. | |
| The socket has not been bound with bind, or an unknown flag was specified, or MSG_OOB was specified for a socket with SO_OOBINLINE enabled. | |
| The virtual circuit was terminated due to a time-out or other failure. The application should close the socket as it is no longer usable. | |
| The virtual circuit was reset by the remote side executing a hard or abortive close. For UDP sockets, the remote host was unable to deliver a previously sent UDP datagram and responded with a "Port Unreachable" ICMP packet. The application should close the socket as it is no longer usable. | |
| The connection has been dropped, because of a network failure or because the system on the other end went down without notice. |
Remarks
The send function is used to write outgoing data on a connected socket.
For message-oriented sockets (address family of AF_INET or AF_INET6, type of SOCK_DGRAM, and protocol of IPPROTO_UDP, for example), care must be taken not to exceed the maximum packet size of the underlying provider. The maximum message packet size for a provider can be obtained by calling getsockopt with the optname parameter set to SO_MAX_MSG_SIZE to retrieve the value of socket option. If the data is too long to pass atomically through the underlying protocol, the error WSAEMSGSIZE is returned, and no data is transmitted.
The successful completion of a send function does not indicate that the data was successfully delivered and received to the recipient. This function only indicates the data was successfully sent.
If no buffer space is available within the transport system to hold the data to be transmitted, send will block unless the socket has been placed in nonblocking mode. On nonblocking stream oriented sockets, the number of bytes written can be between 1 and the requested length, depending on buffer availability on both the client and server computers. The select, WSAAsyncSelect or WSAEventSelect functions can be used to determine when it is possible to send more data.
Calling send with a len parameter of zero is permissible and will be treated by implementations as successful. In such cases, send will return zero as a valid value. For message-oriented sockets, a zero-length transport datagram is sent.
The flags parameter can be used to influence the behavior of the function beyond the options specified for the associated socket. The semantics of the send function are determined by any options previously set on the socket specified in the s parameter and the flags parameter passed to the send function.
The order of calls made to send is also the order in which the buffers are transmitted to the transport layer. send should not be called on the same stream-oriented socket concurrently from different threads, because some Winsock providers may split a large send request into multiple transmissions, and this may lead to unintended data interleaving from multiple concurrent send requests on the same stream-oriented socket.
Example Code
The following example demonstrates the use of the send function.#ifndef UNICODE
#define UNICODE
#endif
#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#include <winsock2.h>
#include <Ws2tcpip.h>
#include <stdio.h>
// Link with ws2_32.lib
#pragma comment(lib, "Ws2_32.lib")
#define DEFAULT_BUFLEN 512
#define DEFAULT_PORT 27015
int main() {
//----------------------
// Declare and initialize variables.
int iResult;
WSADATA wsaData;
SOCKET ConnectSocket = INVALID_SOCKET;
struct sockaddr_in clientService;
int recvbuflen = DEFAULT_BUFLEN;
char *sendbuf = "Client: sending data test";
char recvbuf[DEFAULT_BUFLEN] = "";
//----------------------
// Initialize Winsock
iResult = WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2,2), &wsaData);
if (iResult != NO_ERROR) {
wprintf(L"WSAStartup failed with error: %d\n", iResult);
return 1;
}
//----------------------
// Create a SOCKET for connecting to server
ConnectSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
if (ConnectSocket == INVALID_SOCKET) {
wprintf(L"socket failed with error: %ld\n", WSAGetLastError());
WSACleanup();
return 1;
}
//----------------------
// The sockaddr_in structure specifies the address family,
// IP address, and port of the server to be connected to.
clientService.sin_family = AF_INET;
clientService.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr( "127.0.0.1" );
clientService.sin_port = htons( DEFAULT_PORT );
//----------------------
// Connect to server.
iResult = connect( ConnectSocket, (SOCKADDR*) &clientService, sizeof(clientService) );
if (iResult == SOCKET_ERROR) {
wprintf(L"connect failed with error: %d\n", WSAGetLastError() );
closesocket(ConnectSocket);
WSACleanup();
return 1;
}
//----------------------
// Send an initial buffer
iResult = send( ConnectSocket, sendbuf, (int)strlen(sendbuf), 0 );
if (iResult == SOCKET_ERROR) {
wprintf(L"send failed with error: %d\n", WSAGetLastError());
closesocket(ConnectSocket);
WSACleanup();
return 1;
}
printf("Bytes Sent: %d\n", iResult);
// shutdown the connection since no more data will be sent
iResult = shutdown(ConnectSocket, SD_SEND);
if (iResult == SOCKET_ERROR) {
wprintf(L"shutdown failed with error: %d\n", WSAGetLastError());
closesocket(ConnectSocket);
WSACleanup();
return 1;
}
// Receive until the peer closes the connection
do {
iResult = recv(ConnectSocket, recvbuf, recvbuflen, 0);
if ( iResult > 0 )
wprintf(L"Bytes received: %d\n", iResult);
else if ( iResult == 0 )
wprintf(L"Connection closed\n");
else
wprintf(L"recv failed with error: %d\n", WSAGetLastError());
} while( iResult > 0 );
// close the socket
iResult = closesocket(ConnectSocket);
if (iResult == SOCKET_ERROR) {
wprintf(L"close failed with error: %d\n", WSAGetLastError());
WSACleanup();
return 1;
}
WSACleanup();
return 0;
}
Example Code
For a another example that uses the send function, see Getting Started With Winsock.Notes for IrDA Sockets
- The Af_irda.h header file must be explicitly included.
Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2: This function is supported for Windows Store apps on Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and later.
Requirements
| Requirement | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum supported client | Windows 8.1, Windows Vista [desktop apps | UWP apps] |
| Minimum supported server | Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps | UWP apps] |
| Target Platform | Windows |
| Header | winsock2.h |
| Library | Ws2_32.lib |
| DLL | Ws2_32.dll |