Azure Mobile Service - Socket.IO integration - azure

Question

I have problem with creating Azure Mobile Services Custom Script, I want to use Socket.IO Node.js module, but I don't know how to edit Azure Mobile Services route to be able to access /socket.io/1
After execution this code socket.io is started but client is not able to access URL endpoint from browser, please help me, thank you in advance, my email is: stepanic.matija#gmail.com
My code is:
in /api/notify
exports.register = function (api) {
api.get('socket.io',getSocketIO);
};
function getSocketIO(req,res)
{
var app = require('express')()
, server = require('http').createServer(app)
, io = require('socket.io').listen(server);
server.listen(80);
app.get('/', function (req, res) {
res.sendfile(__dirname + '/index.html');
});
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
socket.emit('news', { hello: 'world' });
socket.on('my other event', function (data) {
console.log(data);
});
});
res.send(statusCodes.OK, { message : '23 Hello World!', bla: 'bla2' });
}

Answer 1

Support for Socket.IO has been added using startup script extension
var path = require('path');
exports.startup = function (context, done) {
var io = require('socket.io')(context.app.server);
io.on('connection', function(socket){
socket.on('chat message', function(msg){
io.emit('chat message', msg);
});
});
context.app.get('/public/chat.html', function(req, res) {
res.sendfile(path.resolve(__dirname, '../public/chat.html'));
});
done();
}
For details see: http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/08/26/how-to-use-socket-io-with-azure-mobile-service-node-backend/

Answer 2

Socket.io is not currently supported.
In may be possible to get it working, but you would need to do this code inside of your mobile services startup script, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/azuremobile/archive/2014/01/14/new-startup-scripts-preview-feature-in-azure-mobile-services.aspx, using the App object provided there.
You'd also need to update the routes on it so your routes are picked up before the mobile service ones.

Answer 3

#stepanic, you might try bundling the Socket.io client as a static file. Here's how we do it in Sails for reference:
From the docs:
<!-- .... -->
</body>
<script type="text/javascript" src="./path/to/bower_components/sails.io.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
// `io` is available as a global.
// `io.socket` will connect automatically, but it is not ready yet (think of $(document).ready() from jQuery).
// Fortunately, this library provides an abstraction to avoid this issue.
// Requests you make before `io` is ready will be queued and replayed automatically when the socket connects.
// To disable this behavior or configure other things, you can set properties on `io`.
// You have one cycle of the event loop to change `io` settings before the auto-connection behavior starts.
io.socket.get('/hello', function serverResponded (body, sailsResponseObject) {
// body === sailsResponseObject.body
console.log('Sails responded with: ', body);
console.log('with headers: ', sailsResponseObject.headers);
console.log('and with status code: ', sailsResponseObject.statusCode);
});
</script>
</html>