Hi we will need to do outbound socket programming in PHP. Will the code work under shared hosting? Will hosting providers allow it? or maybe some allow? Please advice
Most shared providers I've been with allow this feature. You can always email support and ask, but most of the time it will be enabled by default.
I've seen quite a handful of hosts that don't allow fopen()ing on shared hosting because it bogs down the httpd process. It's best you email them and ask if they support it, as companies don't even show this in their FAQ's. Hope this helps.