CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsapirestsocket.io
Erndob
Erndob

Reputation: 2612

REST API-Centric application, with web sockets, using node.js?

I never done any API, I just recently become aware of REST, never used sockets or node.js, but I have this simple project in mind using all of these.

Imagine usual app with request/response stuff. Nothing fancy. But then sometimes I need real time functionality, lets say there's a live support for website, a chat. So majority of users never need sockets and everything is easy, but when they do, what's then? How that would look and work with restful api?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 489

Answers (1)

Jorge Fuentes González
Jorge Fuentes González

Reputation: 11815

As you tag, socket.io is perfect for you. It creates a socket within the browser to your server without the user installing any third party program, using websockets and longpolling. And for the users that have old browsers and don't have those browser built-in functions, it can fallback to a third party plugin: Flash Player, but almost all browsers have it installed.

Is you are used to Javascript or object oriented programming, socket.io and node.js is a walk in the park. If you don't want to use node.js and socket.io, you can write your own implementation of client-server with this info:

WebSockets
Long Polling example
Flash AS3 Socket

As a small adition, simply you need your default web server (Apache, Nginx, Lighthttpd, whatever...) running in default port 80 and also running a node.js server in other port, let's say 8080. That second server will serve all the files needed to connect, because socket.io can only connect to the same domain and port that served the files (security reasons, I guess).

In short, you'll have 2 servers: One serving your entire webpage and another one serving the files needed to connect to your chat (and also serving the chat, obviously).

I have exactly that configuration made in one of my pages (a live sports streaming site) and to add the chat to my site I have this server running in port 8080 and I load it in the main page inside an iframe: http://www.example.com:8080/

As an adition, you can create a complete http server in node.js, but I don't guess that it is useful as a professional web server.

Upvotes: 1

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