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The Socket class implements client sockets (also called just "sockets"). 

A socket is an endpoint for communication between two machines.

For a lot more detail on the API for the Socket class click here.

Here's an example of how you can create a stream socket and connect it to the specified port number on the named host:

Socket socket = new Socket("myhost.com", socketNo);

The following: 

Socket socket = new Socket("myhost.com", socketNo, true);

explicitly specifies that we should connect to a stream socket, whereas

Socket socket = new Socket("myhost.com", socketNo, false);

specifies that we should connect to a datagram socket.

There are corresponding constructors where the first argument is of type InetAddress, and there are other constructors with more complex sets of arguments.