What is the difference between socket and pipe in Linux?

What is the difference between socket and pipe in Linux?

In Linux, sockets and pipes are both used for inter-process communication, but they have different characteristics and use cases.

Socket:

A socket is a communication endpoint that allows processes to communicate with each other over a network or locally within the same system. Sockets provide bidirectional communication and can be used for both TCP (reliable, connection-oriented) and UDP (unreliable, connectionless) communication.

Pipe:

A pipe, on the other hand, is a one-way communication channel used for communication between two related processes within the same system. Pipes are unidirectional and used for passing data from one process to another. They are typically used for simple and temporary communication needs.

In summary, sockets are used for communication between processes over a network or locally, while pipes are used for communication between related processes within the same system.