socket:udp_send/4

Availability::- use_module(library(socket)).(can be autoloaded)

[det]udp_send(+Socket, +Data, +To, +Options)

Send a UDP message. Data is a string, atom or code-list providing the data. To is an address of the form Host:Port where Host is either the hostname or an IP address. Defined Options are:

encoding(+Encoding): Specifies the encoding to use for the string. See udp_receive/4 for details
as(+Type): This uses the same values for Type as the as(Type) option of udp_receive/4. The are interpreted differently though. No Type corresponds to CVT_ALL of PL_get_chars(). Using atom corresponds to CVT_ATOM and any of string or codes is mapped to CVT_STRING|CVT_LIST, allowing for a SWI-Prolog string object, list of character codes or list of characters. Finally, term maps to CVT_WRITE_CANONICAL. This implies that arbitrary Prolog terms can be sent reliably using the option list‘[as(term),encoding(utf8)])`, using the same option list for udp_receive/4.

For example

send(Host, Port, Message) :-
    udp_socket(S),
    udp_send(S, Message, Host:Port, []),
    tcp_close_socket(S).

A broadcast is achieved by using tcp_setopt(Socket, broadcast) prior to sending the datagram and using the local network broadcast address as a ip/4 term.