I am making a completely online website using node.js and react and I want to implement a forum in it. While saving the messages in the mongodb database how should I go about it so I don't have to make an http request for every single message as that will be bad economically. The chat will be implemented using socket.io and I interface with the database using mongoose.
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I am trying to add a functionality in my web app where whenever a new friend request is received in the database (mongodb) then i get a notification through from backend (Node.js) to my frontend (React.js)
Now i researched about this functionality and get to know about socket.io but the problem is the solutions i found which were using socket.io were kind of a brute force according to me ,
In those solutions they were querying the database inside the socket.emit(),
Now according to me if I keep querying the database every 4-5 seconds is it a good approach to do that doesn't it put load on database?
What is the right way to do this?
What i have tried so far is finding a better solution than querying the database again and again till i get an update. But i had no luck ..
The best approach is to connect frontend with backend using websocket/socket.io and as soon as you add a new object the server should push the data to frontend. You don't have to run a database query every 4-5 second. Write a server push event in your data.save() function. So as soon as you create a new object, the backend sends data to frontend.
I am new to socket.io. I have a backend server implemented on nodejs which makes multiple async calls to rest api and send the response back to the client on angular 4.0. I follow the simple http request methodology. However, the issue is that it takes a while for the server to get collect and parse data from each multiple apis and send it back to the client. Therefore, I wanted to implement streaming which will return data to the client as soon as it gets from anywhere. I wanted to know if this can be done efficiently using web sockets and socket.io or is there another way around to do this.
I know, we can make async calls from the client but i want to implement the logic on the server rather than the client.
Note: I donot have realtime data
I'm currently setting up the following application:
Node backend with Express
Postgres DB with Knex as an interface
React frontend
Everything is working as intended and I am making good progress, my question is more architectural:
What is the preferred/recommended/best way to notify the frontend when database changes occur?
I saw that Postgres has a LISTEN/NOTIFY feature but that is not currently (ever) supported by Knex (https://github.com/tgriesser/knex/issues/285).
My thoughts:
Polling (every x seconds query the DB). This seems wasteful and antiquated but it would be easy to set up.
Sockets. Rewrite all my Express endpoints to use sockets?
?
I'm interested to see how others handle this.
Thanks!
I've had a similar situation before. I have a front end which connects via web sockets to the API. The API emits a message on successful database commit with the API endpoint matching the update. The front end components listen for these update socket messages and if the updated type is relevant to that component the component will query the API endpoint over https for the new data. Using a web socket only to advertise that an update is available won't necessitate rewriting the entire API.
I have a REST API server powered by express+mongodb. There are a couple of endpoints with different resources. One of them is chat API. I already have several basic endpoints like:
POST http://api.example.com/v1/chat - to create chat
POST http://api.example.com/v1/chat/:id/message - to send message to existing chat
GET http://api.example.com/v1/chat/:id/messages - to get messages in the the specified chat
But I need to provide a way for API consumers to efficiently get new messages in real-time without reloading the page.
For now as you see it's possible just to poll GET endpoint from client but it seems not performant. For example client can have UI which will show new messages count in header (some kind of notifications).
I was thinking about websockets. Is it possible for example to provide endpoint like /chat/:id/subscribe which will proxy sockets' server and connect to it on client?
Is there some good examples of such API design where I can get inspiration from or maybe you can give me piece of advice? Thanks!
socket.io is the package you are looking for.
The namespace section in it's documentation is a good solution because namespaces can be authorization protected. It represents a pool of connected sockets.
Here is how I would do it :
Create a document for the chat between the two users with this route :
POST http://api.example.com/v1/chat
Create a namespace with socket.io when a user sends a message to another connected user and store it into your user's document in your database. This route would create a namespace and/or emit the message :
POST http://api.example.com/v1/chat/:id/message
In the client, you have to use socket.io again to listen to the messages in the namespace.
UPDATE FOR SCALABILITY :
Here is a good stackoverflow answered question about implementing a scalable chat server : Strategy to implement a scalable chat server
As you can see in this post, mongodb might not be the best solution to store your messages.
I have working PHP application. It allows user create private projects and invite others in it. Now, using node.js and socket.io, I want to make real-time comments, posts etc.
What is the best architecture?
I see two solutions now.
The first is:
User sends AJAX query to PHP backend:
http://example.com/comment_add.php?text=...
comment_add.php adds
comment to database and via AMPQ (or something better?) notifies
node.js server which broadcasts comment to channel's subscribers.
The second is:
User sends AJAX query to node.js server: http://example.com:3000/comment_add
Node.js sends request to PHP backend (But how? And what about authorization?), receives response, and then broadcasts to channel's subscribers.
What is the best way? Is there another methods? How to implement this properly?
When you decided to use node.js + socket.io to make a real-time web-app, you don't need to think about PHP anymore and forget Ajax also... Socket.io will be the communication between client and server.
But yes, you can use Ajax and PHP for building websites fast, and some other functions that don't need real-time
The second way is the best method. You can use http to communicate with PHP from node.js. Authorization can be done in node.js but passing auth credentials everytime to PHP
Finally my working solution is #1.
When user establishing connection to node.js/socket.io he just send 'subscribe' message to node.js with his PHP session id. Node.js checks authorization using POST request to PHP backend and if all is OK allows user to establish connection.
Frontend sends all requests to PHP as it was before node.js.
PHP modifies some object, checks who can access modified object and sends message (via AMQP or redis pub/sub etc.) to node.js:
{
id_object: 125342,
users: [5, 23, 9882]
}
node.js then check who from listed users have active sockets and for each user sends GET request to PHP:
{
userId: 5,
id_object: 125342
}
Special PHP controller receiving this request runs query to get object with rights of given user id and then sends message to node.js with resulting answer. Node.js then via socket sends answer to user's frontend.
I faced this same question a year ago when starting my final year project at University. I realized that my project was much better suited to using Node as a standalone. Node is very good at dealing with I/O, this can be anything from a HTTP requests to a database query. Adding in a PHP based Web Server behind Node is going to add un-needed complexity. If your application needs to perform CPU intensive tasks you can quite easilly spawn 'child' node processed which perform the needed operation, and return the result to your parent node.
However out of the two you methods you have mentioned I would choose #2. Node.js can communicate with your PHP server in a number of ways, you could look at creating a unix socket connection between your PHP server and Node. If that is unavailable you could simply communicate between Node and your PHP back end using HTTP. :)
Take a look here, here is a solution to a question very similar to your own:
http://forum.kohanaframework.org/discussion/comment/57607