  allows users  to read  data from  the
sockets in  several different granularities: patterns  are available for
lines, arbitrary sized blocks  or "read up to connection closed", all with
good performance. 
</p>

<p>
The library distinguishes  three types of TCP sockets:  <em>master</em>, 
<em>client</em> and <em>server</em> sockets. 
</p>

<p>
Master sockets are newly created TCP sockets returned by the function
<a href=tcp.html#tcp><tt>socket.tcp</tt></a>. A master socket is 
transformed into a server soc