If you are an intermediate PHP developer you may have wanted to use sockets in connect to your FTP server. Demitrious shows you how this is done.
Sockets have long been important to the underlying nature and structure of things in, on and around computers. They are very powerful. PHP allows you to harness them at the expense of a couple of late nights, and many cans of liquid caffeine yet, it seems, that too few people truly understand sockets.
I suppose that before you can really use any functionality of sockets it's important to define what sockets are. A beginner should read this for sure, but learned folk (yea I just called all you l337 hax0rs out there 'folk', get over yourselves!), would only need this to refresh their memories as to what sockets are and what they mean.
What are sockets?
A socket is a lot like a pipe or a hose. It is meant to have matter travel through it. This "pipe" does not care what kind of matter will go through it, going through it or already went though it. Nor does it care where the matter is coming from or where it is going to. It's only encompassing goal is to let that matter through it. You can consider a socket (on a computer) to be the pipe which carries the data through it.