getting my head around SOCKETS...

[sneakyimp]

hi:

i'm just getting started with sockets and I've read a number of tutorials that I beging to plan working through as soon as my sysadmin enbles the socket functionality...i am a bit confused though. my first task is to implement a socket connection (like a simple CHAT or PONG game) between two instances of Macromedia Flash. can someone answer these questions?

1) if my domain is mydomain.com and my script can be found at http://mydomain.com/sockets/foo.php and this PHP script creates a socket on port 1234, how can i interact with that script using telnet?
would I do:
telnet mydomain.com 1234
or
telnet mydomain.com/sockets/foo.php 1234?

2) once i've written a script, how does it get activated? assuming i've written a PHP script FOO.PHP that creates sockets, if i run a command line something like this:
php -q foo.php
have i created a socket? do I need to turn it off?
3) in a PHP script that creates sockets, what does ECHO do? where does that output go?

your help would be GREATLY appreciated.

[sneakyimp]

oK....I think I may have this figured out...i write the script first, it can be activated from the command line or from a browser. once the script is run, the SOCKET LISTENER is created which will listen for message (telnet or otherwise) on the prescribed PORT. the script may or may not continue to run depending on its structure.

now i have another point of confusion...

if I want my server to communicate with two different clients at once and pass information between them, how do I get the two different sessions to share data without writing a file? in other words, if i have a replica of the classic Atari tank combat game and there are two players...

Player 1 (where session_id = 'foo')
Player 2 (where session_id = 'bar')

and they both access the socket i've created on port 1234 with my file 'socket.php', how do I let Player 1 know that Player 2 is shooting at him?