Definition of the Term 'Socket Primitive' in Distributed Systems

’Socket Primitive’ is a heavily used term associated with network operations in computer science. A socket is a communication end point of a computer system. The word ’primitive’ is often used to name an instruction which represents a self-contained unit on the current abstraction level. Therefore, a ’Socket Primitive’ is a socket related function that is provided by various high-level programming language libraries. This technical report describes and ultimately defines the term ’Socket Primitive’.