CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ajaxtcpstreamingclient-server
Thomas Shields
Thomas Shields

Reputation: 8942

What's the Best Way to Open a TCP Stream to Server?

Rather a hard to nail down question, but basically I'm wondering what the best way (and not "what's your opinion" but "which will most adequately meet the requirement i shall set forth) is to open a stream connection from a client side webpage to a server such that either can send data to the other without polling? I'm thinking the term for this is HTTP binding vs. HTTP Polling. The context here is a chat application - i'd like a streamed connection so that the browser isn't constantly pushing requests out. The client end here is KnockoutJS and jQuery. I'd like to be able to have the data pushed back and forth be JSON (or at least manipulatable by jQuery and Knockout's toJSON). The server end - not quite sure what it is going to be, but i'll probably be running on a linux server, so anything compatible with that works fine. If there's any more details i can provide, just let me know - i'm sure i left some obvious detail out. Also, i'm aware there's probably a duplicate question on this, so if your answer is as good as closing for a dupe and putting in a link, that's great. Thanks!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 948

Answers (1)

Kevin Babcock
Kevin Babcock

Reputation: 10247

I think what you're looking for is referred to as Comet. The basic idea is to keep HTTP requests open for longer periods of time so that the server can send data to the client as it comes in, rather than the client having to continually poll the server for new data. There are multiple ways to implement it. This Wikipedia article is a good start for more info.

This MIX 2011 video discusses the long polling technique (although the suggestion in the video is that web sockets will be a better solution with future browsers).

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions