Socket handler: Generic TCP/IP client using sockets

This class can be used to implement TCP/IP clients using socket connections.

It can establish persistent and non-persistent connections to a server with a given IP address and port. The connection timeout period is configurable.

It can send and receive data from the server. The server response can be retrieved line by line or in data chunks of variable size.

The class can verify whether the connection is still valid before attempting to retrieve the server response.