The socket.io client is basically a simple HTTP Socket interface implementation. It allows you to establish a realtime connection with a server (see socket.io server here), hiding the complexity of the different transports (WebSocket, Flash, forever iframe, XHR long polling, XHR multipart encoded, etc), while retaining a WebSocket-like API:
socket = new io.Socket('localhost');
socket.connect();
socket.on('connect', function(){
// connected
});
socket.on('message', function(data){
// data here
});
socket.send('some data');
-
Supports
- WebSocket
- Adobe Flash Socket
- ActiveX HTMLFile (IE)
- XHR with multipart encoding
- XHR with long-polling
- JSONP polling (for cross-domain)
-
Tested on
- Safari 4
- Google Chrome 5
- Internet Explorer 6
- Internet Explorer 7
- Internet Explorer 8
- iPhone Safari
- iPad Safari
- Firefox 3
- Firefox 4 (Minefield)
- Opera 10.61
-
ActionScript Socket is known not to work behind proxies, as it doesn't have access to the user agent proxy settings to implement the CONNECT HTTP method. If it fails,
socket.iowill try something else. -
On a successful connection, it remembers the transport for next time (stores it in a cookie).
-
Small. Closure Compiled with all deps: 5.82kb (gzipped).
-
Easy to use! See socket.io-node for the server to connect to.
socket = new io.Socket('localhost');
socket.connect();
socket.send('some data');
socket.on('message', function(data){
alert('got some data' + data);
});
For an example, check out the chat source.
If you are serving you .swf from a other domain than socket.io.js you will need to change the WEB_SOCKET_SWF_LOCATION to the insecure version.
<script>WEB_SOCKET_SWF_LOCATION = '/path/to/WebSocketMainInsecure.swf';</script>
The insecure version can be found here.
IMPORTANT! When checking out the git repo, make sure to include the submodules. One way to do it is:
git clone [repo] --recursive
Another, once cloned
git submodule update --init --recursive
new io.Socket(host, [options]);
Options:
-
port
Current port or 80The port
socket.ioserver is attached to (defaults to the document.location port) -
resource
socket.ioThe resource is what allows the
socket.ioserver to identify incoming connections bysocket.ioclients. In other words, any HTTP server can implement socket.io and still serve other normal, non-realtime HTTP requests. -
transports
['websocket', 'flashsocket', 'htmlfile', 'xhr-multipart', 'xhr-polling']A list of the transports to attempt to utilize (in order of preference)
-
transportOptions
{ someTransport: { someOption: true }, ... }An object containing (optional) options to pass to each transport.
Properties:
-
options
The passed in options combined with the defaults
-
connected
Whether the socket is connected or not.
-
connecting
Whether the socket is connecting or not.
-
transport
The transport instance.
Methods:
-
connect
Establishes a connection
-
send(message)
A string of data to send.
-
disconnect
Closes the connection
-
on(event, λ)
Adds a listener for the event event
-
removeEvent(event, λ)
Removes the listener λ for the event event
Events:
-
connect
Fired when the connection is established and the handshake successful
-
connecting(transport_type)
Fired when a connection is attempted, passing the transport name
-
connect_failed
Fired when the connection timeout occurs after the last connection attempt. This only fires if the
connectTimeoutoption is set. If thetryTransportsOnConnectTimeoutoption is set, this only fires once all possible transports have been tried. -
message(message)
Fired when a message arrives from the server
-
close
Fired when the connection is closed. Be careful with using this event, as some transports will fire it even under temporary, expected disconnections (such as XHR-Polling).
-
disconnect
Fired when the connection is considered disconnected.
Guillermo Rauch <guillermo@learnboost.com>
(The MIT License)
Copyright (c) 2010 LearnBoost <dev@learnboost.com>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.