[c] socket connect() vs bind()

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_sockets#bind.28.29

connect():

The connect() system call connects a socket, identified by its file descriptor, to a remote host specified by that host's address in the argument list.

Certain types of sockets are connectionless, most commonly user datagram protocol sockets. For these sockets, connect takes on a special meaning: the default target for sending and receiving data gets set to the given address, allowing the use of functions such as send() and recv() on connectionless sockets.

connect() returns an integer representing the error code: 0 represents success, while -1 represents an error.

bind():

bind() assigns a socket to an address. When a socket is created using socket(), it is only given a protocol family, but not assigned an address. This association with an address must be performed with the bind() system call before the socket can accept connections to other hosts. bind() takes three arguments:

sockfd, a descriptor representing the socket to perform the bind on. my_addr, a pointer to a sockaddr structure representing the address to bind to. addrlen, a socklen_t field specifying the size of the sockaddr structure. Bind() returns 0 on success and -1 if an error occurs.

Examples: 1.)Using Connect

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(){
  int clientSocket;
  char buffer[1024];
  struct sockaddr_in serverAddr;
  socklen_t addr_size;

  /*---- Create the socket. The three arguments are: ----*/
  /* 1) Internet domain 2) Stream socket 3) Default protocol (TCP in this case) */
  clientSocket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);

  /*---- Configure settings of the server address struct ----*/
  /* Address family = Internet */
  serverAddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
  /* Set port number, using htons function to use proper byte order */
  serverAddr.sin_port = htons(7891);
  /* Set the IP address to desired host to connect to */
  serverAddr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("192.168.1.17");
  /* Set all bits of the padding field to 0 */
  memset(serverAddr.sin_zero, '\0', sizeof serverAddr.sin_zero);  

  /*---- Connect the socket to the server using the address struct ----*/
  addr_size = sizeof serverAddr;
  connect(clientSocket, (struct sockaddr *) &serverAddr, addr_size);

  /*---- Read the message from the server into the buffer ----*/
  recv(clientSocket, buffer, 1024, 0);

  /*---- Print the received message ----*/
  printf("Data received: %s",buffer);   

  return 0;
}

2.)Bind Example:

int main()
{
    struct sockaddr_in source, destination = {};  //two sockets declared as previously
    int sock = 0;
    int datalen = 0;
    int pkt = 0;

    uint8_t *send_buffer, *recv_buffer;

    struct sockaddr_storage fromAddr;   // same as the previous entity struct sockaddr_storage serverStorage;
    unsigned int addrlen;  //in the previous example socklen_t addr_size;
    struct timeval tv;
    tv.tv_sec = 3;  /* 3 Seconds Time-out */
    tv.tv_usec = 0;

    /* creating the socket */         
    if ((sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_UDP)) < 0) 
        printf("Failed to create socket\n");

    /*set the socket options*/
    setsockopt(sock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_RCVTIMEO, (char *)&tv, sizeof(struct timeval));

    /*Inititalize source to zero*/
    memset(&source, 0, sizeof(source));       //source is an instance of sockaddr_in. Initialization to zero
    /*Inititalize destinaton to zero*/
    memset(&destination, 0, sizeof(destination));


    /*---- Configure settings of the source address struct, WHERE THE PACKET IS COMING FROM ----*/
    /* Address family = Internet */
    source.sin_family = AF_INET;    
    /* Set IP address to localhost */   
    source.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;  //INADDR_ANY = 0.0.0.0
    /* Set port number, using htons function to use proper byte order */
    source.sin_port = htons(7005); 
    /* Set all bits of the padding field to 0 */
    memset(source.sin_zero, '\0', sizeof source.sin_zero); //optional


    /*bind socket to the source WHERE THE PACKET IS COMING FROM*/
    if (bind(sock, (struct sockaddr *) &source, sizeof(source)) < 0) 
        printf("Failed to bind socket");

    /* setting the destination, i.e our OWN IP ADDRESS AND PORT */
    destination.sin_family = AF_INET;                 
    destination.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("127.0.0.1");  
    destination.sin_port = htons(7005); 

    //Creating a Buffer;
    send_buffer=(uint8_t *) malloc(350);
    recv_buffer=(uint8_t *) malloc(250);

    addrlen=sizeof(fromAddr);

    memset((void *) recv_buffer, 0, 250);
    memset((void *) send_buffer, 0, 350);

    sendto(sock, send_buffer, 20, 0,(struct sockaddr *) &destination, sizeof(destination));

    pkt=recvfrom(sock, recv_buffer, 98,0,(struct sockaddr *)&destination, &addrlen);
    if(pkt > 0)
        printf("%u bytes received\n", pkt);
    }

I hope that clarifies the difference

Please note that the socket type that you declare will depend on what you require, this is extremely important