# CocoaAsyncSocket
[](https://travis-ci.org/robbiehanson/CocoaAsyncSocket) [](http://cocoadocs.org/docsets/CocoaAsyncSocket) [](https://github.com/Carthage/Carthage) [](http://cocoapods.org/?q=CocoaAsyncSocket) [](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain)
CocoaAsyncSocket provides easy-to-use and powerful asynchronous socket libraries for Mac and iOS. The classes are described below.
## Installation
#### CocoaPods
Install using [CocoaPods](http://cocoapods.org) by adding this line to your Podfile:
````ruby
use_frameworks! # Add this if you are targeting iOS 8+ or using Swift
pod 'CocoaAsyncSocket'
````
#### Carthage
CocoaAsyncSocket is [Carthage](https://github.com/Carthage/Carthage) compatible. To include it, build your project with Carthage, then drag `Carthage/Build/iOS/CocoaAsyncSocket.framework` into your project.
#### Manual
You can also include it into your project by adding the source files directly, but you should probably be using a dependency manager to keep up to date.
### Importing
Using Objective-C:
```obj-c
@import CocoaAsyncSocket; // When using iOS 8+ frameworks
// OR
#import "CocoaAsyncSocket.h" // When not using frameworks, targeting iOS 7 or below
```
Using Swift:
```swift
import CocoaAsyncSocket
```
## TCP
**GCDAsyncSocket** and **AsyncSocket** are TCP/IP socket networking libraries. Here are the key features available in both:
- Native objective-c, fully self-contained in one class.
_No need to muck around with sockets or streams. This class handles everything for you._
- Full delegate support
_Errors, connections, read completions, write completions, progress, and disconnections all result in a call to your delegate method._
- Queued non-blocking reads and writes, with optional timeouts.
_You tell it what to read or write, and it handles everything for you. Queueing, buffering, and searching for termination sequences within the stream - all handled for you automatically._
- Automatic socket acceptance.
_Spin up a server socket, tell it to accept connections, and it will call you with new instances of itself for each connection._
- Support for TCP streams over IPv4 and IPv6.
_Automatically connect to IPv4 or IPv6 hosts. Automatically accept incoming connections over both IPv4 and IPv6 with a single instance of this class. No more worrying about multiple sockets._
- Support for TLS / SSL
_Secure your socket with ease using just a single method call. Available for both client and server sockets._
**GCDAsyncSocket** is built atop Grand Central Dispatch:
- Fully GCD based and Thread-Safe
_It runs entirely within its own GCD dispatch_queue, and is completely thread-safe. Further, the delegate methods are all invoked asynchronously onto a dispatch_queue of your choosing. This means parallel operation of your socket code, and your delegate/processing code._
- The Latest Technology & Performance Optimizations
_Internally the library takes advantage of technologies such as [kqueue's](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kqueue) to limit [system calls](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_call) and optimize buffer allocations. In other words, peak performance._
**AsyncSocket** wraps CFSocket and CFStream:
- Fully Run-loop based
_Use it on the main thread or a worker thread. It plugs into the NSRunLoop with configurable modes._
## UDP
**GCDAsyncUdpSocket** and **AsyncUdpSocket** are UDP/IP socket networking libraries. Here are the key features available in both:
- Native objective-c, fully self-contained in one class.
_No need to muck around with low-level sockets. This class handles everything for you._
- Full delegate support.
_Errors, send completions, receive completions, and disconnections all result in a call to your delegate method._
- Queued non-blocking send and receive operations, with optional timeouts.
_You tell it what to send or receive, and it handles everything for you. Queueing, buffering, waiting and checking errno - all handled for you automatically._
- Support for IPv4 and IPv6.
_Automatically send/recv using IPv4 and/or IPv6. No more worrying about multiple sockets._
**GCDAsyncUdpSocket** is built atop Grand Central Dispatch:
- Fully GCD based and Thread-Safe
_It runs entirely within its own GCD dispatch_queue, and is completely thread-safe. Further, the delegate methods are all invoked asynchronously onto a dispatch_queue of your choosing. This means parallel operation of your socket code, and your delegate/processing code._
**AsyncUdpSocket** wraps CFSocket:
- Fully Run-loop based
_Use it on the main thread or a worker thread. It plugs into the NSRunLoop with configurable modes._
***
Can't find the answer to your question in any of the [wiki](https://github.com/robbiehanson/CocoaAsyncSocket/wiki) articles? Try the **[mailing list](http://groups.google.com/group/cocoaasyncsocket)**.
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