Is it possible to use Java Socket over IPX/SPX protocol?

Question

I am trying to create a Java desktop application, communicating to a remote server which is based on IPX/SPX protocol. Could someone help me with following questions ?

1), Does Java Socket support IPX/SPX protocol ? I did not find any such kind of usages, but found a lot of related articles written in C(Winsock).

2), This article(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms741399(v=vs.85).aspx) describing about how Winsock works over IPX/SPX, how can I do the same thing in Java Socket programming?

3), How can I specify the protocol in Java Socket programming ?

Thank you all!

Answer 1

The standard Java library only supports TCP/IP sockets (TCP via Socket and ServerSocket, UDP via DatagramSocket). It does not support raw sockets or any other protocols such as IPX/SPX.

Your only choice would be to use a native library that can speak IPX/SPX and call this library from Java. A quick search doesn't turn up any existing solutions for this; given that IPX/SPX isn't a very popular protocol these days, you might have to roll your own solution for this.