Develop Reference

WebSocket needs browser refresh to update list

My project works as intended except that I have to refresh the browser every time my keyword list sends something to it to display. I assume it's my inexperience with Expressjs and not creating the route correctly within my websocket? Any help would be appreciated.
Browser
let socket = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:3000");
socket.addEventListener('open', function (event) {
console.log('Connected to WS server')
socket.send('Hello Server!');
});
socket.addEventListener('message', function (e) {
const keywordsList = JSON.parse(e.data);
console.log("Received: '" + e.data + "'");
document.getElementById("keywordsList").innerHTML = e.data;
});
socket.onclose = function(code, reason) {
console.log(code, reason, 'disconnected');
}
socket.onerror = error => {
console.error('failed to connect', error);
};
Server
const ws = require('ws');
const express = require('express');
const keywordsList = require('./app');
const app = express();
const port = 3000;
const wsServer = new ws.Server({ noServer: true });
wsServer.on('connection', function connection(socket) {
socket.send(JSON.stringify(keywordsList));
socket.on('message', message => console.log(message));
});
// `server` is a vanilla Node.js HTTP server, so use
// the same ws upgrade process described here:
// https://www.npmjs.com/package/ws#multiple-servers-sharing-a-single-https-server
const server = app.listen(3000);
server.on('upgrade', (request, socket, head) => {
wsServer.handleUpgrade(request, socket, head, socket => {
wsServer.emit('connection', socket, request);
});
});

In answer to "How to Send and/or Stream array data that is being continually updated to a client" as arrived at in comment.
A possible solution using WebSockets may be to
Create an interface on the server for array updates (if you haven't already) that isolates the array object from arbitrary outside modification and supports a callback when updates are made.
Determine the latency allowed for multiple updates to occur without being pushed. The latency should allow reasonable time for previous network traffic to complete without overloading bandwidth unnecessarily.
When an array update occurs, start a timer if not already running for the latency period .
On timer expiry JSON.stringify the array (to take a snapshot), clear the timer running status, and message the client with the JSON text.
A slightly more complicated method to avoid delaying all push operations would be to immediately push single updates unless they occur within a guard period after the most recent push operation. A timer could then push modifications made during the guard period at the end of the guard period.
Broadcasting
The WebSockets API does not directly support broadcasting the same data to multiple clients. Refer to Server Broadcast in ws documentation for an example of sending data to all connected clients using a forEach loop.
Client side listener
In the client-side message listener
document.getElementById("keywordsList").innerHTML = e.data;
would be better as
document.getElementById("keywordsList").textContent = keywordList;
to both present keywords after decoding from JSON and prevent them ever being treated as HTML.

So I finally figured out what I wanted to accomplish. It sounds straight forward after I learned enough and thought about how to structure the back end of my project.
If you have two websockets running and one needs information from the other, you cannot run them side by side. You need to have one encapsulate the other and then call the websocket INSIDE of the other websocket. This can easily cause problems down the road for other projects since now you have one websocket that won't fire until the other is run but for my project it makes perfect sense since it is locally run and needs all the parts working 100 percent in order to be effective. It took me a long time to understand how to structure the code as such.

nodejs socket emit return undefined

I am trying to send to clients whenever a new connection issued.
My server side javascripts is :
var clients = 0;
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
clients ++;
console.log(clients);
socket.broadcast.emit('connect',socket.clients);
}
and my client side js to handle:
socket.on('connect', function (data) {
console.log('on'+data);});
the output is undefined (on undefined)
Where 's things wrong?

socket.broadcast.emit('connect',socket.clients);
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this should be 'clients'
Also, connect is a pre-defined event with socket.io, so you shouldn't reuse it or it might give unexpected results.
FWIW: socket.broadcast.emit will send a message to all connections except the current one. If that's not what you want (you want the message to be sent to all connections), use io.sockets.emit instead).

node.js server and client sideo code to connect

Im trying to set up a node.js server to send messages to the client, which will then display the messages using a jquery notification library, I'm using this notifcation library if anyone's interested: http://needim.github.com/noty/
At the minute I have a postgres database set up with a table which has a a trigger on it to write to a listener.
The trigger is as follows:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION new_noti() RETURNS trigger AS $$
DECLARE
BEGIN
PERFORM pg_notify('watchers', TG_TABLE_NAME || ',msg,' || NEW.msg );
RETURN new;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
Then I have a node.js server as follows:
var pg = require ('pg');
var pgConString = "pg://aydin:password#localhost/test"
var app = require('http').createServer(handler)
, io = require('socket.io').listen(app)
, url = require('url')
app.listen(8080);
function handler (request, respsonse) {
var client = new pg.Client(pgConString);
client.connect();
client.query('LISTEN "watchers"');
client.on('notification', function(msg) {
console.log(msg.payload);
sendMessage(msg.payload);
});
}
function sendMessage(message) {
io.sockets.emit('notification', {'message': message});
}
Then I have some client code as follows:
<script type="text/javascript">
var socket = io.connect('http://localhost:8080');
socket.on('notification', function (data) {
console.log(data.message);
newNoty(data);
});
function newNoty(data) {
noty({
"text":data.message,
buttons: [{
type: 'button green',
text: 'Go to'
}],
"theme":"noty_theme_twitter",
"layout":"bottomRight",
"type":"information",
"animateOpen":{
"height":"toggle"
},
"animateClose":{
"height":"toggle"
},
"speed":500,
"timeout":7500,
"closeButton":true,
"closeOnSelfClick":true,
"closeOnSelfOver":false,
"modal":false,
});
}
</script>
This doesn't work, it seems the node.js never receives the postgres notifications, I think this is because I am using the function handler and I'm not actually firing any requests to it from the client code. I'm not sure how to do this and whether it is the correct way?
Is there a function on which can fire on connections and not requests?
And am I even doing it the right way round? should there be a server on the client side which node.js sends messages to? How does it know when a client is available? Any help or pointers to tutorials would be much appreciated. Thankyou.

You're not actually setting up your database connection until the client sends an HTTP request. It looks like that may never happen due to same-origin issues (your client code appears to be coming from somewhere other than the server you've shown).
In any case, you probably want to set up the connection in response to a "connection" event from io.sockets (i.e. move the stuff that's currently in the HTTP request handler there). That's how it "knows when a client is available". Or maybe you should be doing it as part of initialization. Your client-side code seems OK, but it's out of context so it's hard to tell whether it really fits your needs.

Socket.io with Cluster: iterating over all open connections

I'm running Socket.io multi-threaded with the native cluster functionality provided by Node.js v0.6.0 and later (with RedisStore).
For every new change in state, the server iterates over each connection and sends a message if appropriate. Note: this isn't "broadcasting" to all connections, it's comparing server data with data the client sent on connection to decide whether to send the server data to that particular client. Consider this code sample:
io.sockets.clients().forEach(function (socket) {
socket.get('subscription', function (err, message) {
if(message.someProperty === someServerData) {
socket.emit('position', someServerData);
}
});
This worked fine when there was only one process, but now, the client receives a message for each Node process (ie. if there are 8 Node process running, all clients receive the messages 8 times).
I understand why the issue arises, but I'm not sure of a fix. How can I assign a 1-to-1 relation from one process to only on client. Perhaps something using NODE_WORKER_ID of Cluster?
This previous SO question seems somewhat related, although I'm not sure it's helpful.
This seems like a pretty common request. Surely, I must be missing something?

So if I get this straight you need to emit custom events from the server. You can do that by creating your own custom EventEmitter and triggering events on that emitter, for example:
var io = require('socket.io').listen(80);
events = require('events'),
customEventEmitter = new events.EventEmitter();
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
// here you handle what happens on the 'positionUpdate' event
// which will be triggered by the server later on
eventEmitter.on('positionUpdate', function (data) {
// here you have a function that checks if a condition between
// the socket connected and your data set as a param is met
if (condition(data,socket)) {
// send a message to each connected socket
// if the condition is met
socket.emit('the new position is...');
}
});
});
// sometime in the future the server will emit one or more positionUpdate events
customEventEmitter.emit('positionUpdate', data);
Another solution would be to have those users join the 'AWE150', so only they will receive updates for 'AWE150', like so:
var io = require('socket.io').listen(80);
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
if (client_is_interested_in_AWE) { socket.join('AWE150'); }
io.sockets.in('AWE150').emit('new position here');
});
Resources:
http://spiritconsulting.com.ar/fedex/2010/11/events-with-jquery-nodejs-and-socket-io/

Is it possible to update a single part of a page using Nodejs and Socket.io?

I'm trying to create a basic Node application, every time a client connects I want to update the counter which is displayed on the page. (My goal is to create this application in its most simple, and learnable form to demonstrate node to my lecturer).
Server side application snippets:
Making the connection
var clients = 0;
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
socket.on('connect', function () { clients += 1 });
socket.on('disconnect', function(){ clients -= 1 });
});
Rendering the page
app.get(navigation.chat.page, function(req, res){
res.render('chat', {
title: navigation.chat.title,
connected: clients
});
});
Chat page jade template snippet:
span#client_count #{connected}
| connected clients
Client side jQuery, Socket.io and JavaScript
var socket = io.connect('http://localhost');
$(document).ready(function(){
socket.on('connect', socket.emit('connect'));
});
Problem:
The number of connected clients only updates upon page refresh. I would like the number to be updated asynchronously. I'm quite new to node, socket.io and express so i'm unsure how to tackle the problem!

rather than incrementing on client side, better keep counter value on server side, increment on connection and decrement on disconnect io events. Then, you can send updated counter (in the same event handlers where value was changed). On client side, listen for event with counter and when received, replace value in html.
server :
var users_count = 0;
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
//on connection, update users count
++users_count;
//send it to every opened socket
io.sockets.emit('users_count', users_count);
//when this socket is closed
socket.on('disconnect', function () {
//user disconnected
--users_count;
//emit to every opened socket, so everyone has up to date data
io.sockets.emit('users_count', users_count);
});
});
client :
jQuery(function($){
//connect to localhost
var socket = io.connect('http://localhost');
//handle users_count event, by updating our html
socket.on('users_count', function(data){
$('#client_count').text(data);
});
});