Bash: Socket Programming (Alternative to using Netcat)

bash_sockets.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# consider if the server is passing a file like

while true; do nc -l 10000 <<<"hi"; done 

# on our client side, we can consume this using nc

nc 10.0.0.1 10000

# however, if our client didn't have nc, we could easily do this bash socket feature

cat < /dev/tcp/10.0.0.1/10000
echo "test" > /dev/tcp/10.0.0.1/10000

# there's also /dev/udp

# note that bash cannot establish listening servers, it can only act as a client to an existing server
# see: http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/49947/56970

# this feature only applies to bash, and is not portable, not even to zsh
# and also they are not real files, they don't exist on the filesystem and they can only be used in redirections (the path cannot should not be passed to a program)