I'm trying to run the below program but I keep getting connection error's:
from socket import *
from codecs import decode
HOST = 'localhost'
PORT = 5000
BUFSIZE = 1024
ADDRESS = (HOST, PORT)
server = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM)
server.connect(ADDRESS)
dayAndTime = decode(server.recv(BUFSIZE), 'ascii')
print(dayAndTime)
server.close()
ERROR: ConnectionRefusedError: [Errno 61] Connection refused
Any idea what's going on?
If your book doesn't mention the other half of sockets, you need a better book.
Socket basics are easy. You have one process listen on a port, waiting for connections. Commonly we'll call this a 'server'. Another process (perhaps on the same machine, perhaps remote) attempts to connect to that port. We'll call that the client.
If no one is listening, then when the client attempts to connect they'll get your error Connection Refused.
So, set up a listening process. Below, on the left is server code; on the right is client code. Top-to-bottom is the "flow".
server = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM) # <- just like your example
server.bind(ADDRESS) # rather than 'connect', we 'bind' to the port
server.listen(1) # bind "claims" the port, so next we call listen & wait...
# Meanwhile...
# Your client process
client = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM)
client.connect(ADDRESS)
# It's only at this moment that the client reaches across the network to the server...
# On connect, the listening server wakes up, and needs to "accept" the connection
(s, remote_addr) = server.accept()
Once accepted, you can now send/recv on the s socket on the server-side, and send/recv from the client socket on the client side. Note that the server variable is not the socket to communicate on -- it's used to listen for new connections. Instead, you read/write on the socket object returned as first item of accept().
There's lots more to consider but this is at the heart of the Internet and has been pretty much unchanged since the 1980s.
Image from wikipedia entry for Berkeley Sockets: 
