Stop channels when ws not able to connect - multithreading

Question

I have the following code which works ok, the issue is that when the socket.Connect() fails to connect I want to stop the process, I’ve tried with the following code
but it’s not working, I.e. if the socket connect fails to connect the program still runs.
What I want to happen is that if the connect fails, the process stops and the channe…what am I missing here?
func run (appName string) (err error) {
done = make(chan bool)
defer close(done)
serviceURL, e := GetContext().getServiceURL(appName)
if e != nil {
err = errors.New("process failed" + err.Error())
LogDebug("Exiting %v func[err =%v]", methodName, err)
return err
}
url := "wss://" + serviceURL + route
socket := gowebsocket.New(url)
addPass(&socket, user, pass)
socket.OnConnectError = OnConnectErrorHandler
socket.OnConnected = OnConnectedHandler
socket.OnTextMessage = socketTextMessageHandler
socket.OnDisconnected = OnDisconnectedHandler
LogDebug("In %v func connecting to URL %v", methodName, url)
socket.Connect()
jsonBytes, e := json.Marshal(payload)
if e != nil {
err = errors.New("build process failed" + e.Error())
LogDebug("Exiting %v func[err =%v]", methodName, err)
return err
}
jsonStr := string(jsonBytes)
LogDebug("In %v Connecting to payload JSON is %v", methodName, jsonStr)
socket.SendText(jsonStr)
<-done
LogDebug("Exiting %v func[err =%v]", methodName, err)
return err
}
func OnConnectErrorHandler(err error, socket gowebsocket.Socket) {
methodName := "OnConnectErrorHandler"
LogDebug("Starting %v parameters [err = %v , socket = %v]", methodName, err, socket)
LogInfo("Disconnected from server ")
done <- true
}
The process should open one ws connection for process that runs about 60-90 sec (like execute npm install) and get the logs of the process via web socket and when it finish , and of course handle the issue that could happen like network issue or some error running the process

Answer 1

So, #Slabgorb is correct - if you look here (https://github.com/sacOO7/GoWebsocket/blob/master/gowebsocket.go#L87) you will see that the OnConnectErrorHandler is called synchronously during the execution of your call to Connect(). The Connect() function doesn't kick off a separate goroutine to handle the websocket until after the connection is fully established and the OnConnected callback has completed. So when you try to write to the unbuffered channel done, you are blocking the same goroutine that called into the run() function to begin with, and you deadlock yourself, because no goroutine will ever be able to read from the channel to unblock you.
So you could go with his solution and turn it into a buffered channel, and that will work, but my suggestion would be not to write to a channel for this sort of one-time flag behavior, but use close signaling instead. Define a channel for each condition you want to terminate run(), and in the appropriate websocket handler function, close the channel when that condition happens. At the bottom of run(), you can select on all the channels, and exit when the first one closes. It would look something like this:
package main
import "errors"
func run(appName string) (err error) {
// first, define one channel per socket-closing-reason (DO NOT defer close these channels.)
connectErrorChan := make(chan struct{})
successDoneChan := make(chan struct{})
surpriseDisconnectChan := make(chan struct{})
// next, wrap calls to your handlers in a closure `https://gobyexample.com/closures`
// that captures a reference to the channel you care about
OnConnectErrorHandler := func(err error, socket gowebsocket.Socket) {
MyOnConnectErrorHandler(connectErrorChan, err, socket)
}
OnDisconnectedHandler := func(err error, socket gowebsocket.Socket) {
MyOnDisconectedHandler(surpriseDisconnectChan, err, socket)
}
// ... declare any other handlers that might close the connection here
// Do your setup logic here
// serviceURL, e := GetContext().getServiceURL(appName)
// . . .
// socket := gowebsocket.New(url)
socket.OnConnectError = OnConnectErrorHandler
socket.OnConnected = OnConnectedHandler
socket.OnTextMessage = socketTextMessageHandler
socket.OnDisconnected = OnDisconnectedHandler
// Prepare and send your message here...
// LogDebug("In %v func connecting to URL %v", methodName, url)
// . . .
// socket.SendText(jsonStr)
// now wait for one of your signalling channels to close.
select { // this will block until one of the handlers signals an exit
case <-connectError:
err = errors.New("never connected :( ")
case <-successDone:
socket.Close()
LogDebug("mission accomplished! :) ")
case <-surpriseDisconnect:
err = errors.New("somebody cut the wires! :O ")
}
if err != nil {
LogDebug(err)
}
return err
}
// *Your* connect error handler will take an extra channel as a parameter
func MyOnConnectErrorHandler(done chan struct{}, err error, socket gowebsocket.Socket) {
methodName := "OnConnectErrorHandler"
LogDebug("Starting %v parameters [err = %v , socket = %v]", methodName, err, socket)
LogInfo("Disconnected from server ")
close(done) // signal we are done.
}
This has a few advantages:
1) You don't need to guess which callbacks happen in-process and which happen in background goroutines (and you don't have to make all your channels buffered 'just in case')
2) Selecting on the multiple channels lets you find out why you are exiting and maybe handle cleanup or logging differently.
Note 1: If you choose to use close signaling, you have to use different channels for each source in order to avoid race conditions that might cause a channel to get closed twice from different goroutines (e.g. a timeout happens just as you get back a response, and both handlers fire; the second handler to close the same channel causes a panic.) This is also why you don't want to defer close all the channel at the top of the function.
Note 2: Not directly relevant to your question, but -- you don't need to close every channel - once all the handles to it go out of scope, the channel will get garbage collected whether or not it has been closed.

Answer 2

Ok, what is happening is the channel is blocking when you try to add something to it. Try initializing the done channel with a buffer (I used 1) like this:
done = make(chan bool, 1)