[boost] asio library

Subject: [boost] asio library
From: Peter Foelsche (peter_foelsche_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-10-26 17:30:12

Out of curiousity (reading somebody comment here regarding socket calls)
I looked into the asio library and found the following example code below.
My question is:
What is the use of the socket object created in the first line?
I think this line must always be followed by some more code.
Because of this it does not make sense, that a library exports this 
functionality.

boost::asio::ip::tcp::socket socket(io_service);
boost::system::error_code ec;
socket.open(boost::asio::ip::tcp::v4(), ec);
if (ec)
{
  // An error occurred.
}