The WinSock2 Library
Support for sockets has been included with the Windows operating system by an interface library called WinSock or more recently WinSock2. The older WinSock library will not be discussed any further in this manual. The WinSock2 library supports most of the functionality provided by Berkeley Sockets (usually using the same names for functions, types, and constants). The WinSock2 library also supports many functions not present in the Berkeley Sockets library.
The WinSock2 library is implemented as a Windows DLL and is distributed along with a C header file (which provides declarations for the WinSock2 functions, types, and constants). You can use Irie Pascal to write programs that use the WinSock2 library. The WinSock2 C header file has been translated into Pascal, and is distributed with Irie Pascal for your convenience. You should include the translated file (i.e. WinSock2.inc) in your programs that use the WinSock2 library. A number of sample programs, that use sockets, are included with Irie Pascal in the InstallDir\samples\sockets folder. NOTE: InstallDir is the folder where Irie Pascal was installed.
The authoritative source of information about the WinSock2 library is the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN). You can access the MSDN on the Microsoft website at msdn.microsoft.com.