is getaddrinfo really necessary?

Looking at the examples from MSDN for windows sockets 2, they give this:

Code:

...
    ZeroMemory(&hints, sizeof(hints));
    hints.ai_family = AF_INET;
    hints.ai_socktype = SOCK_STREAM;
    hints.ai_protocol = IPPROTO_TCP;
    hints.ai_flags = AI_PASSIVE;

    // Resolve the server address and port
    iResult = getaddrinfo(NULL, DEFAULT_PORT, &hints, &result);
    if ( iResult != 0 ) {
        printf("getaddrinfo failed: %d\n", iResult);
        WSACleanup();
        return 1;
    }

    // Create a SOCKET for connecting to server
    ListenSocket = socket(result->ai_family, result->ai_socktype, result->ai_protocol);
    if (ListenSocket == INVALID_SOCKET) {
        printf("socket failed: %ld\n", WSAGetLastError());
        freeaddrinfo(result);
        WSACleanup();
        return 1;
    }

    // Setup the TCP listening socket
    iResult = bind( ListenSocket, result->ai_addr, (int)result->ai_addrlen);
    if (iResult == SOCKET_ERROR) {
        printf("bind failed: %d\n", WSAGetLastError());
        freeaddrinfo(result);
        closesocket(ListenSocket);
        WSACleanup();
        return 1;
    }

    freeaddrinfo(result);
...

my question is, is the getaddrinfo( really necessary? I mean, couldn't you just pass those values in hints directly to sockets( and bind( ?

No, because "result" is filled out by getaddrinfo and required by subsequent functions.

sorry, i guess i didn't phrase my question correctly.
what i meant was, couldn't i just use something like:

Code:

ListenSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCPIP);

and

Code:

bind(ListenSocket, myaddr, sizeof(myaddr));

where myaddr is a struct sockaddr_in that i have already initialized?

getaddrinfo looks up the hostname into the internal format used by Winsock (according to MSDN).
If you've already initialized that hostname, then sure, but otherwise no.