"Unbinding" sockets in c

[bamsanks]

I'm learning how to use sockets in c, which is going reasonably well.
My issue is that after I have successfully compiled and run my program, the ports/sockets are apparently still in use the next time I run the program, causing it to fail.
It seems that as soon as I close the terminal in which I ran the first instance of the program, I can run another instance.
Any ideas as to whether this is a programming issue or whether the terminal is supposed to keep the ports open?
It can get annoying having to close and open a new terminal every time I want to run the program.

[dwhitney67]

After you have opened the socket, and have obtained a valid socket descriptor, issue the following configuration for the socket:


const int optVal = 1;
const socklen_t optLen = sizeof(optVal);

int rtn = setsockopt(sd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, (void*) &optVal, optLen);

assert(rtn == 0); /* this is optional */

As for your current conundrum with the sockets still appearing as if they are binded, just give your system a few moments (maybe minutes) to clean up.

[bamsanks]

Excellent. Thankyou very much.

[slavik]

have you tried closing the socket on exit?

[bamsanks]

Yep. I was doing that. The problem seemed to be that the address was still in use while the terminal was open, which was solved by changing the SO_REUSEADDR option.