I'm trying to understand Socket.IO, but i need help.
I'am looking at the Socket.IO docs and found this piece of code:
var io = require('socket.io')();
io.on('connection', function(socket){
socket.emit('an event', { some: 'data' });
});
Source: http://socket.io/docs/server-api/#socket#emit(name:string[,-…]):socket
Coming from an Object-oriented programming background, i understand that the first line "imports" the Socket.IO library. Furthermore it "creates an instance" of socket.io which is saved as the variable io.
But what does the the next two lines do? What is this io.on, what is 'connection', what is the origin of the parameter socket, and what does this mean: some: 'data'?
But what does the the next two lines do? What is this io.on, what is
'connection', what is the origin of the parameter socket, and what
does this mean: some: 'data'?
Let's go through your code line by line and explain:
var io = require('socket.io')();
io.on('connection', function(socket){
socket.emit('an event', { some: 'data' });
});
First, the line:
var io = require('socket.io')();
This line does three things. First, it loads the module with require('socket.io'). Second, it calls the constructor on the returned module with the () at the end. Then, it assigns the return result from the constructor to the variable io. Per the socket.io documention, calling the constructor in this way starts up a web server on the default port 80 that is listening for incoming socket.io connections. The return result of the constructor is the socket.io server instance (in the io variable) that can be used for future socket.io operations.
Then, the line:
io.on('connection', function(socket){
The .on() method on the socket.io instance is a generic way of registering event handlers. Once you get to know node.js in more detail, you will recognize this as an EventEmitter interface and, in fact, the socket.io instance is a subclass of EventEmitter. So, with this particular .on() method call, you are registering an event handler for the 'connection' event.
Socket.io will call the connection event any time a new socket.io connection is established with your socket.io server. This is your way of getting notified any time a new client connects. Per the socket.io documentation, the callback you pass for that event will be passed one argument which is the socket object associated with the newly established connection. This event handler allows you to see each new socket.io connection right when they are first connected.
Then, the line:
socket.emit('an event', { some: 'data' });
This says that when a new connection is established, you want to immediately send that new socket a message. In socket.io a message consists of two parts - first, the message name and second some optional message data. In this particular case, the message name is 'an event'. Message names must be a string, but you can make them pretty much any string name you want (I think there may be a few reserved names such as ping and pong, but other than that, this is entirely up to you to make up a message name. In order to receive a message that you server sends , the client on the other end of the connection will just need to listen for the exact same message name that you send here.
The second argument to .emit() is optional and can be some data that you want to send with the message. Here's a simpler example to illustrate:
socket.emit('setColor', 'blue');
This sends the 'setColor' message and sends the data "blue" with it so that the receiving client knows what color it should be set to.
The data can be any Javascript data that can be properly represented in JSON. Because you can't actually send live Javascript objects or arrays over a network, those objects are serialized into the JSON format and then sent as text. The receiving client will deserialize it and turn it back into whatever data type it was supposed to be. So, in your specific example, it was doing this:
socket.emit('an event', { some: 'data' });
That was sending a Javascript object. The { some: 'data' } syntax in Javscript is the declaration of an object literal. In this particular case, this is a Javascript object that has one property with the name some and the value of that property is 'data'. This is obviously just for example purposes as a real application would likely have more meaningful data such as:
socket.emit('format', {fontSize: 16, color: 'blue', type: 'san serif'});
Then, the receiving client would get a Javascript object with all three properties on it fontSize, color and type.
Then, the line:
});
This just closes off the io.on(... line that was started before.
io.on('connection'... basically tells Socket.io to listen on this event. When socket.io establishes a connection, we execute the callback:
function (socket) { ... }
The next line:
socket.emit('an event', { some: 'data' });
tells socket.io to emit, or send an event through the pipeline with the name an event as well as the data { some: 'data' }. If you understand how events work in jQuery or regular old js, then this flow would be familiar. Here's an example in jQuery
// listening for the click event
$('.foo').click(function (e, data) { // data is equal to foo
alert('clicked');
return false;
}
and for triggering (emitting)
$('a').trigger('click', [ 'foo' ]);
Related
I am making an application with sockets and the need arises to broadcast information, but only to people who are inside a room.
This is my code from the server.ts
// Dependencies
import express from 'express'
import http from 'http'
import socket from 'socket.io';
import {connect, disconnect, orderChanged} from './sockets/socket';
import {config} from 'dotenv';
config ();
// Main class
export default class server {
_private static instance: server
public app: express.Application
public port: number
http: http.Server private
public io: socket.Server
// Initialize variables and methods
// Singleton pattern implementation
private constructor () {
this.app = express ()
this.port = Number (process.env.SRV_PORT)
this.http = new http.Server (this.app)
this.io = new socket.Server (this.http, {
cors: {
origin: true,
credentials: true
}
})
this.listenSockets ();
}
// Return the instance running Singleton pattern
public static get instance () {
returns this._instance || (this._instance = new Server ())
}
// Method to start the server
start (callback: any) {
this.http.listen (this.port, callback)
}
private listenSockets (): void {
console.log ('Listening Sockets');
this.io.on ('connection', client => {
console.log ('Connected to room', client.rooms, '-', client.id);
// User disconnected
disconnect (client);
connect (client);
});
}
}
Since node starts, an instance is created in DP Singleton and the socket listener is launched
When an operation happens in the database, anywhere in the app, I send it to call and send information to the front-end which is correctly received by the front-end and does what it has to do. Example url / edit-products
import server from '../core/server';
// Socket broadcast, new information
const __id = String (req.headers.id);
const updatedData = await getNewData (__id);
Server.instance.io.emit ('data changed', updatedData);
The problem is that this information is sent indiscriminately to all users connected to the socket. Now, I have a unique ID that brings multiple users together in a MongoDB model. You could use that ID to broadcast only to users with that ID. There is a logic that implies that if the user connects from Mexico, add it to an Array of people in MongoDB, otherwise it will add it to another MongoDB document, then they are two different IDs.
I would love the room to be that ID.
I saw that I could use the socket's join () method, but that function derives from the connected client, not from the server itself. I try to issue the information like this
// Socket broadcast, new information
const __id = String (req.headers.id);
const updatedData = await getNewData (__id);
Server.instance.io.in (updatedData._id) .emit ('data changed', updatedData);
But at no point did I set up that "ROOM". When the user login, he could add it but I don't know how to create a custom room, he tried something like this
const user = await UserModel.find (_data);
Server.instance.io.join (user.channel._id);
But that function within io does not exist.
It exists this way, but it doesn't work for me
Server.instance.io.on ('user-join', (socket: Socket) => {
console.log (plug);
socket.join (uuid);
});
Server.instance.io.emit ('user join');
What could I do?
.join() is a method on an individual socket. That's how you use it as socket.join(roomName). When the first user joins a room, the room is created automatically and other users can also join it. When the last user leaves the room, the room is removed automatically from the server. So, you join a user's socket to a room - you don't join something to the server.
Similarly, when you tried this:
Server.instance.io.on ('user-join', (socket: Socket) => {
console.log (plug);
socket.join (uuid);
});
That doesn't work because you don't listen for incoming messages from a socket on the server (except for the connection message - which introduces the socket object). You listen for incoming client messages on a socket itself:
Server.instance.io.on ('connection', (socket: Socket) => {
socket.on('user-join', () => {
// you will have to find the room name that goes with this socket
socket.join(someRoomName);
});
});
Also, note that this code:
private listenSockets (): void {
console.log ('Listening Sockets');
this.io.on ('connection', client => {
console.log ('Connected to room', client.rooms, '-', client.id);
// User disconnected
disconnect (client);
connect (client);
});
}
looks problematic. Why would you disconnect a client when they connect? You don't show those functions disconnect() and connect() so it's unclear what they actually do - I would guess they keep track of connected clients somehow. If you're just trying to clean up any state that might have been previously left hanging, then you should be doing something like this:
private listenSockets (): void {
console.log ('Listening Sockets');
this.io.on ('connection', client => {
console.log ('Connected to room', client.rooms, '-', client.id);
client.on('disconnect', () => {
// User disconnected
disconnect(client);
});
// user connected now
connect(client);
});
}
You don't have to worry about inaccurate housekeeping on whether a socket is connected or not. You will always get a disconnect event for a socket when it disconnects. This is for two reasons. For a browser window that closes or a page that the user navigates away from, the browser cleans up all objects associated with that page, including the open socket.io connection. This will always close the socket and cause a disconnect event. Second, socket.io uses ping and pong messages to regularly check if an existing connection is still working. If it's not, it will get disconnected. The client may or may not retry to open a new connection depending upon the circumstance. But, any disfunctional connection (one that isn't respond to ping messages) will get closed by the server and a disconnect event will occur for that too. So, those two circumstances make sure that a disconnect event always happens.
Server.instance.io.emit ('data changed', updatedData); The problem is that this information is sent indiscriminately to all users connected to the socket.
This sends to all users connected to your server and is how it was designed.
To send to a single socket, you would use:
socket.emit(...);
where socket is what you're code calls client, the object you get from the connection event.
To send to all sockets who have joined a room, you would use:
io.in(roomName).emit(...)
where io is the socket.io server instance.
And, there are many, many more variations of .emit() depending upon exactly what you're trying to send to.
Now, I have a unique ID that brings multiple users together in a MongoDB model. You could use that ID to broadcast only to users with that ID. There is a logic that implies that if the user connects from Mexico, add it to an Array of people in MongoDB, otherwise it will add it to another MongoDB document, then they are two different IDs. I would love the room to be that ID.
I don't completely follow what you're trying to do, but it seems like inside your connect(client) function, you could just call client.join(uniqueIDForMultipleUsers) and that would create a room with this uniqueID and add this client to that room. In the future, you can send to everyone in that room with io.in(uniqueIDForMultipleUsers).emit(...).
But at no point did I set up that "ROOM". When the user login, he could add it but I don't know how to create a custom room, he tried something like this
You don't create rooms manually. You just use socket.join(roomName) and the socket.io infrastructure automatically creates the room if it doesn't already exist. Similarly when the last socket in a room either leaves the room or disconnects, the room is automatically removed. So you just don't have to manage the room creation or deletion yourself. In fact, a room object is not something you ever deal with directly - it's a housekeeping item inside of the socket.io server that contains a list of sockets that are currently in the room. A socket can be in as many rooms as it wants to be. You use these on the server:
socket.join(roomName); // add a client's socket to a room
socket.leave(roomName); // remove a client's socket from a room
io.in(roomName).emit(...); // broadcast a message to every socket in a room
What is sometimes a bit confusing about the above logic is that socket.join() and socket.leave() are socket methods, but they actually modify a data structure in the server (where the list of rooms/sockets are kept). For whatever reason, that's just how they chose to originally design the API. Logically, it's more like io.join(socket, roomName) since it's modifying something on the server. But, since the socket knows the server object it's part of, they can leave that off and just do socket.join(roomName).
I just started learning NodeJS and Socket.io. Until now I have this demo code, from official socket.io site:
http://socket.io/demos/chat/
I am able to get the unique client's ID of each user (socket) which connects, I am still trying to figure out, How can I make my code to only connect with 1 random user at a time when somebody runs the application. I just want to make random chat like Omegle (http://www.omegle.com/).
Only two users should randomly connect and chat with each other till they re-run the app, if they come back they should get connected with someone else who is in the online queue.
What changes do I need to do to have a similar behaviour?
Update
Added Client site code, main.js
$(function() {
var FADE_TIME = 150; // ms
var TYPING_TIMER_LENGTH = 400; // ms
var COLORS = [
'#e21400', '#91580f', '#f8a700', '#f78b00',
'#58dc00', '#287b00', '#a8f07a', '#4ae8c4',
'#3b88eb', '#3824aa', '#a700ff', '#d300e7'
];
// Initialize variables
var $window = $(window);
var $usernameInput = $('.usernameInput'); // Input for username
var $messages = $('.messages'); // Messages area
var $inputMessage = $('.inputMessage'); // Input message input box
var $loginPage = $('.login.page'); // The login page
var $chatPage = $('.chat.page'); // The chatroom page
// Prompt for setting a username
var username;
var connected = false;
var typing = false;
var lastTypingTime;
var $currentInput = $usernameInput.focus();
//Own Global
var room = '';
var socket = io();
function addParticipantsMessage (data) {
var message = '';
if (data.numUsers === 1) {
// message += "there's 1 participant";
// Status Message
message += "Waiting to connect with someone";
} else {
// message += "there are " + data.numUsers + " participants";
//Status message update
message = "You are connected to a stranger! Say Hey!";
}
log(message);
}
// Sets the client's username
function setUsername () {
username = cleanInput($usernameInput.val().trim());
// If the username is valid
if (username) {
$loginPage.fadeOut();
$chatPage.show();
$loginPage.off('click');
$currentInput = $inputMessage.focus();
// Tell the server your username
socket.emit('add user', username);
// Own
socket.emit('login', {'username' : 'Faizan'});
}
}
Although I would close this question because it's too vague, I feel obliged to give you some insight since I worked way too much with websockets in the last years (although not that much with socketio & nodejs). I suppose some simple guide and relevant links could help you. So first,
Kind of relevant intro
You should already know that Socket.io is a WebSocket implementation.
WebSockets (WS) allow server to send data whenever it wants, as long as the connection is still open, as opposed to old way: client querying all the time asking, if there is an update on the server.
You can imagine a woman and a man at the end of a party: "Thanks for tonight, I'd love to repeat it sometimes soon. Would you give me your number?" - asks the old man. "Ughhh, you know what, better give me yours, I promise I will call you!"
If the girl were to give him her number, he'd call a few times a day asking if she'd go somewhere (and she'd reply no). The other way around, she would call him only if she wanted to go and he would go. Of course he would.
I got a bit carried away, but you get the picture. The woman is a server, the guy is a client.
What is important to understand
(Absolute basic, you should know this =>)
When client connect to your server, (s)he should be served a html page and some javascript, which establishes connection to your WS server. In the code you've posted, Express is used as http server. Check this example to see how you should give user html&js.
You'll also notice namespaces and rooms in most of these tutorials. These are used for separating users into subcategories. One server may contain multiple namespaces (by default only one) and each namespace may contain multiple rooms. You probably won't need to bother with namespaces, one is just enough for your case. You will, however, need to understand rooms (more on that later).
Next thing, taken from your code
io.on('connection', function (socket) {
It's important to know, that socket here basically represent one connected client (in one namespace, but possibly in multiple rooms). You can do all sort of stuff with it, most notably:
install event handlers on it (that's what you do when you call socket.on(event, handler(data))
send events to it with socket.emit(event, data)
send broadcast event to all users with socket.broadcast.emit(event, data)
add/remove it to/from room with socket.join(room), socket.leave(room) respectively.
work with it as with an ordinary variable - store it wherever you want and then reuse it
Do you see the definition of numUsers in your code? That's a global variable which is shared with all clients, since nodejs is single-threaded. In the example it is being incremented inside one of the event handlers. Think we could use something like that? YES.
We can define global variable, queue for example. Or Q if you want. Point is, it can be an array used to store sockets, or rather clients, which are not currently in chat room.
At the end of this section I'd like to point out another obvious thing.
io.on('connection', handler); defines an event handler for 'connection' event happening on the io object (WS server). This is triggered each time client makes connection to your WS server (in your case, through javascript ran inside client's browser). Argument to the method is socket and it is this method where you should add event listeners for each client (that you already do in the code, particularly handling events 'new message', 'add user', 'typing', 'stop typing' and 'disconnect').
What events shall you need
That really depends on how complex you want your app to be. In my opinion, the bare minimum would be (note that you can change the event names, but 'disconnect' should stay 'disconnect'):
event name -> data given
Events handled on server side
login -> username (how the user should be called), possibly password if you want to enable registration
message -> text (content of the message being sent)
leave room -> room name
disconnect
Event handled on client side
connect
chat start -> name (second client's name), room (so we can leave it)
chat end -> no data required if you want to allow only one chat at the same time. In case of multiple chats you should also include which chat got closed
disconnect
Last note before we get started
This is only a rough sketch. There are multiple different crossroads along the way and which path you take mostly depends on your idea of the app. If you want to have multiple chats opened at the same time, you'll need to do some modifications. The same goes if you want to have more than two people connected to the same chat. Here I'll describe the simplest case possible, one chat, to people, no registration. Possibly what you want, judging from your post. Could be wrong.
Workflow
User opens your page in their web browser. You serve them html and javascript. The javascript will start new connection to your websocket server. Also, handlers for desired events should be defined at this point.
When the connection is established, this will be happening:
ON SERVER SIDE
io.on('connection', handler) will be fired. Only appropriate handlers for new socket will be installed, not doing anything else at this point.
ON CLIENT SIDE
socket.on('connect', handler) will be fired. Client should at that point have username stored somewhere. If not, no problem. The connection will be alive for quite some time. You can just call socket.emit('login', {'username':name) any time you wish after you are connected (in the example below I set up variable connected, which defaults to false but will be set to true as soon as connection is established.)
After you send login event from client, server registers it and saves it somewhere. Possibilities are endless, in this case I'll create global dictionary which maps socket.id to username. After that, user socket should be either paired with another one or added to queue.
So, if the queue is empty, simply append socket to global variable (it doesn't have to be an array, since we will pair the first available sockets together, however you may want to implement some history of users so they won't get connected to the same person again). If the queue is not empty, we pull one socket out of the Q and add them to the same room. Room name can be random or whatever you want, I'll use (socket1.id+'#'+socket2.id (if you wanted to have more users in one chat, this would have to be changed).
After you add them both, you'll need to notify them that their chat has started and send them the other peer's name. You will emit event 'chat start'.
Clients will catch the event and open new window. After that, whenever user types something and sends it, client emits event 'message' with payload {'message': user_inserted_text}. Server will capture it in the .on('message' handler and broadcast it to the room. Note:
Broadcasting means sending a message to everyone else except for the socket that starts it.
Note: I am really confused about socketio code right now. Look at this and tell me, if socket.rooms is an array or an object (socket.rooms[room] = room; ?? why?)
To avoid dealing with this not-straightforward code, lets create another global object, rooms, which will store the room names for us. We will map socket.id -> roomName there.
So when message comes, we can get name of the room by calling rooms[socket.id]. Then we broadcast the message like this:
socket.broadcast.to(room).emit('message', data);
Where data is what we received from the sender, therefore object {'text': 'some nice message'}. Your peer will then receive it (you won't) and display it (you should display it when you are sending it).
So the chat continues like this for a while, then one of the users decides (s)he wants to leave / chat with somebody else. They will close window and client will emit event 'leave room'. Server will capture it and send to the other party that her/his peer has disconnected. The same should happen if the client disconnects. After everything is closed, add both users to queue (or only one, if the other has disconnected from the server). In my code I will not make sure they won't get paired again. That is for the OP to code (can't be hard).
So, if you read this far, you deserve some actual code. Although I say actual, it's actually untested. But you know, it should work like this.
Some code
Client side
var connected = false;
var username = 'Faizan';
var room = '';
var socket = io('http://localhost');
socket.on('connect', function (data) { // we are connected, should send our name
connected = true;
if (username) socket.emit('login', {'username' : username});
});
socket.on('chat start', function(data) {
room = data.room;
show_chat_window(data.name); // some method which will show chat window
});
socket.on('chat end', function(data) {
hide_chat_window(); // this will close chat window and alert user that the peer ended chat
socket.leave(room); // it's possible to leave from both server and client, hoever it is better to be done by the client in this case
room = '';
});
socket.on('disconnect', function(data) { // handle server/connection falling
console.log('Connection fell or your browser is closing.');
});
var send_message = function(text) { // method, which you will call when user hits enter in input field
if (connected) socket.emit('message', {'text': text});
};
var leave_chat = function() { // call this when user want to end current chat
if (connected) {
socket.emit('leave room');
socket.leave(room);
room = '';
}
};
Server side
Not including initial requires and html/js serving., only global definitions and main io handler.
var queue = []; // list of sockets waiting for peers
var rooms = {}; // map socket.id => room
var names = {}; // map socket.id => name
var allUsers = {}; // map socket.id => socket
var findPeerForLoneSocket = function(socket) {
// this is place for possibly some extensive logic
// which can involve preventing two people pairing multiple times
if (queue) {
// somebody is in queue, pair them!
var peer = queue.pop();
var room = socket.id + '#' + peer.id;
// join them both
peer.join(room);
socket.join(room);
// register rooms to their names
rooms[peer.id] = room;
rooms[socket.id] = room;
// exchange names between the two of them and start the chat
peer.emit('chat start', {'name': names[socket.id], 'room':room});
socket.emit('chat start', {'name': names[peer.id], 'room':room});
} else {
// queue is empty, add our lone socket
queue.push(socket);
}
}
io.on('connection', function (socket) {
console.log('User '+socket.id + ' connected');
socket.on('login', function (data) {
names[socket.id] = data.username;
allUsers[socket.id] = socket;
// now check if sb is in queue
findPeerForLoneSocket(socket);
});
socket.on('message', function (data) {
var room = rooms[socket.id];
socket.broadcast.to(room).emit('message', data);
});
socket.on('leave room', function () {
var room = rooms[socket.id];
socket.broadcast.to(room).emit('chat end');
var peerID = room.split('#');
peerID = peerID[0] === socket.id ? peerID[1] : peerID[0];
// add both current and peer to the queue
findPeerForLoneSocket(allUsers[peerID]);
findPeerForLoneSocket(socket);
});
socket.on('disconnect', function () {
var room = rooms[socket.id];
socket.broadcast.to(room).emit('chat end');
var peerID = room.split('#');
peerID = peerID[0] === socket.id ? peerID[1] : peerID[0];
// current socket left, add the other one to the queue
findPeerForLoneSocket(allUsers[peerID]);
});
});
P.S.
The code above got a bit messy in the end. It can be done better and I encourage you to do better job than I did. Having this material at hand, go through it step by step and try to understand. I think I commented most, if not all of it. Good luck.
Tl;dr
I am not even surprised. Here, read a comic
I am currently having a problem with a small Node.JS application. It is extremely similar to, for example, the Socket.IO sample chat application: whenever an user sends data to the server, I need to process the data and then broadcast it to all users. However, the way data is processed depends on the user that receives it. I tried altering the Socket#emit method (in order to process the data before sending it) for each socket, but the broadcasting doesn't use it. Is there any way I can get this solved?
Thanks in advance.
EDIT
Here is what I'd tried ():
var io = require('socket.io');
io.use(function(socket, next) {
var old_emit = socket.emit;
socket.emit = function() {
// do something with the data (arguments[1] in this case)
// the processing of the data depends on a value that is
// unique to each connection, and can't be sent over to the client
old_emit.apply(socket, arguments);
}
});
I tried the code above because I thought, initially, that broadcasting would call emit somewhere else for each connection.
I am not sure what you want to do,
There is no any "io( )" like function.You are doing it wrong.
BTW, to process data.
From sample chat application,
// when the client emits 'new message', this listens and executes
socket.on('new message', function (data) {
//call a function which you want to process data
var newData = messageProcessingFunc(data);
//and then broadcast it.
// we tell the client to execute 'new message'
socket.broadcast.emit('new message', {
username: socket.username,
message: newData
});
});
I have a Node.js application with a frontend app and a backend app, the backend will manage the list and "push" an update to the frontend app, the call to the frontend app will trigger a list update so that all clients receive the correct list data.
The problem is on the backend side, when I press the button, I perform an AJAX call, and that AJAX call will perform the following code (trimmed some operations out of it):
Lists.findOne({_id: active_settings.active_id}, function(error, lists_result) {
var song_list = new Array();
for (i=0; i < lists_result.songs.length; i++) {
song_list.push(lists_result.songs[i].ref);
}
Song.find({
'_id': {$in: song_list}
}, function(error, songs){
// DO STUFF WITH THE SONGS
// UPDATE SETTINGS (code trimmed)
active_settings.save(function(error, updated_settings) {
list = {
settings: updated_settings,
};
var io = require('socket.io-client');
var socket = io.connect(config.app_url);
socket.on('connect', function () {
socket.emit('update_list', {key: config.socket_key});
});
response.json({
status: true,
list: list
});
response.end();
}
});
});
However the response.end never seems to work, the call keeps hanging, further more, the list doesn't always get refreshed so there is an issue with the socket.emit code. And the socket connection stays open I assume because the response isn't ended?
I have never done this server side before so any help would be much appreciated. (the active_settings etc exists)
I see some issues that might or might not be causing your problems:
list isn't properly scoped, since you don't prefix it with var; essentially, you're creating a global variable which might get overwritten when there are multiple requests being handled;
response.json() calls .end() itself; it doesn't hurt to call response.end() again yourself, but not necessary;
since you're not closing the socket(.io) connection anywhere, it will probably always stay open;
it sounds more appropriate to not set up a new socket.io connection for each request, but just once at your app startup and just re-use that;
I want to do something like:
//client -> notifies server that client is connected.
//server -> begins fetching information from DB (series of both async and synchronous requests).
//as sets of data become available on server -> server pushes updates to client via res.render()
Basically I have a menu item on the client, and I want to update that menu as the data that the server fetches gets ready. is there any way to do this? I notice I can't do
res.render('something');
// again
res.render('somethingElse');
Because once render is called, then the response is sent, and render cannot be called again
"Error: Can't set headers after they are sent."
Any suggestions?
You might benefit from using WebSockets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket
This post has a little bit of info:
Which websocket library to use with Node.js?
HTTP works via request/response. Typically once the response is sent, the connection is terminated.
To stream data from the server to client, you can use websockets. There is a very popular node.js module called socket.io, which simplifies using websockets.
Using socket.io, the client code would look like this:
var socket = io.connect('http://yourserver.com');
socket.on('data', function (data) {
updateMenu(data);
});
And the server code:
var io = require('socket.io').listen(80);
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
socket.emit('data', data);
getMoreDataFromDb(function(data){
socket.emit('data', data);
});
// etc..
});
Alternatively, if you want a simpler solution, you can just make multiple small ajax requests to the server, until you get all your data:
(function getData(dataId){
$.ajax({
url:"yourserver.com/getdata",
data: dataId || {},
success:function(data){
updateMenu(data);
if(data) getData({ lastDataReceived: data.lastId }); // server is still returning data, request more
}
});
})();