Differences and connections between TCP, UDP, HTTP, and SOCKET

IP: Network layer protocol;

TCP and UDP: Transport layer protocol;

HTTP: Application layer protocol;

SOCKET: API of TCP/IP network.

TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol and refers to a series of protocols.

TCP and UDP use the IP protocol to transmit data packets from one network to another. Think of IP as a kind of highway that allows other protocols to travel on it and find their way to other computers. TCP and UDP are the "trucks" on the highway, and the goods they carry are protocols like HTTP, File Transfer Protocol, FTP, etc.

TCP and UDP are transport layer protocols used by the likes of FTP, HTTP and SMTP. Although both TCP and UDP are used to transport other protocols, they have one significant difference: TCP provides guaranteed data transmission, while UDP does not. This means that TCP has a special mechanism to ensure that data is transmitted safely and error-free from one endpoint to another, while UDP does not provide any such guarantee.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is a protocol that uses TCP to transmit information between two computers (usually a web server and a client). The client uses a web browser to initiate an HTTP request to the web server, and the web server sends the requested information to the client.

Remember, IP protocol is required to connect to the network; TCP is a mechanism that allows us to transmit data securely, and HTTP, which uses TCP protocol to transmit data, is a special protocol used by web servers and clients.

The Socket interface is the API of the TCP/IP network. The Socket interface defines many functions or routines for developing applications on the TCP/IP network.