socket.io - broadcast to certain users - javascript

I need to build twosome chat, using websockets (socket.io + node.js).
So, the simple example to broadcast message to all users:
socket.on('user message', function (msg) {
socket.broadcast.emit('user message', socket.nickname, msg);
});
But how can I broadcast it from certain user to certain user?

There are two possibilites :
1) Each socket has its own unique ID stored in socket.id. If you know the ID of both users, then you can simply use
io.sockets[id].emit(...)
2) Define your own ID (for example user's name) and use
socket.join('priv/John');
in connection handler. Now whenever you want send message only to John, you simply do
socket.broadcast.to('priv/John').emit(...)
Side note: the first solution provided cannot be scaled to multiple machines, so I advice using the second one.

You can use the socket.join(...) function to provide groups:
socket.on('init', function(user) {
if (user.type == 'dog') {
socket.join('dogs');
}
else {
socket.join('cats');
}
});
...
io.to('dogs').emit('food', 'bone'); // Only dogs will receive it
io.to('cats').emit('food', 'milk'); // Only cats will receive it

Related

SignalR multi user live chat desynchronisation

I have a live chat in which multiple people would be connected simultaneously. All public messaging works fine, but sometimes private messaging to a specific id doesn't work. I believe i narrowed it down to when people disconnected and reconnected that they connected to a different instance (perhaps IIS had recycled and started a new hub).
I thought I had fixed it, but I haven't and now I'm here because I'm stuck. What I thought would fix it was changing the connection variable within the startChat() function to refresh it with the correct information.
This is a cut down version of the code, as I didnt thing the rest would be necesary.
Issue is that when connected to signalR recipients of a message directly to them doean't come through, even though the chat Id it's being sent to it correct. Possible hub/socket mismatch?
var chat = $.connection.chatHub;
$(document).ready(function () {
// Start the chat connection.
startChat();
//restart chat if disconnected
$.connection.hub.disconnected(function () {
setTimeout(startChat(), 5000);
});
$.connection.hub.error(function (error) {
$('#messagebar').html('Chat ' + error + '. If this message doesn\'t go away, refresh your page.');
});
chat.client.addToChat = function (response) {
$('#chat-' + response.Type).prepend(response.Message);
};
});
function startChat() {
chat = $.connection.chatHub;
$.connection.hub.start().done(function () {
//get recent chat from db and insert to page.
//also saves user's chat id to their user for lookup when private messaging
$.ajax({
method: 'POST',
url: '/api/Chat/SetupChat/'
});
$('#messagebar').html('Connected to chat.');
});
}
Any help appreciated, Thanks.
Not sure exactly how your message is going missing, but you should send messages to a User instead of by connection id. This way you be able to identify on the server that a User has at least one connection, and send messages to all connections for that User. if a given connection id is no longer valid, but another one is (because the client has refreshed the page for example) the message wont be lost.
From the docs https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/signalr/groups:
The user identifier for a connection can be accessed by the
Context.UserIdentifier property in the hub.
public Task SendPrivateMessage(string user, string message)
{
return Clients.User(user).SendAsync("ReceiveMessage", message);
}
Not sure how this relates exactly to your server code, but you could add it if you're unclear how to progress.

Socket.io - tell client if he creates or joins a room

I currently use the following code to allow users to create/join a specific room in socket.io:
socket.on('create', function (roomId) {
...
socket.join(roomId);
...
});
since the join function is used for both creating AND joining the same room, I would like tell the client if he was the one that created the room or just joined an existing one.
WHAT I TRIED TO DO
I tried to store the Id (and other informations not related to the problem), then check whenever that id already exists and emit a different message depending on the results. something like:
// "repo" is a variable declared globally
socket.on('create', function (roomId) {
...
socket.join(roomId);
if (repo.hasRoom(roomId)) {
app.io.sockets.in(roomId).emit('someone Joined');
} else {
app.io.sockets.in(roomId).emit('someone Created this room');
repo.saveRoom(roomId);
}
...
});
the above code doesn't work, as the client is unable to receive the message emitted (I guess because is on the "create" event). to be clear, I CAN determine on the server if a room is created, but the CLIENT doesn't know.
Is there an effective way to notify the client if he was responsible for creating or just joining a room?

socket.io assigning custom socket.id

I keep track the list of every users connected in the array.
So if there is a new connection, it will check whether the user is already on the list or not, if he was already on the list, then assign their socket.id with the corresponding socket.id on the list, otherwise just add them to the list.
It's for preventing same user counted as 2 user while he attempt to do multi-login.
Object.keys(client).forEach(function (key) {
if (client[key].id == data.id){
is_connected = true;
socket.id = key;
}
});
I have no problem handling the messages/chat that was sent/received by the user who attempt multi-login.
socket.on('chat', function(msg){
var data = {"name": client[socket.id].name, "message": msg};
io.emit('chat', data);
});
The io.emit for the chat message was succesfully sent to the user who attempting multi-login.
The problem I got was whenever the user decide to logout/disconnect from the server.
io.emit('user_leave', client[socket.id].id);
[Multi-Login Case] -> Multi-User and Dual-User are same user attempting Multi-Login
Whenever the Main-User disconnected from the server, the Dual-User received 'user_leave' sent by the server, because io.emit supposed to send it to all sockets.
But not otherwise, while the Sub-User disconnected from the server, the Main-user do not receive 'user_leave' emitted by the server.
*Note: Main-User is login first, then the Dual-User. So the Main-User information was saved directly in the array, while the Sub-User socket.id was assigned with the Main-User socket.id
[Update]
B2 socket.id was assigned with B1 socket.id, the io.emit for chat work perfectly while io.emit for disconnect only emitted to All except Dual-User(B2)
socket.id is used internally by socket.io for its own socket list. You cannot overwrite that or you break some of its ability to maintain its own data structures.
You have two choices:
You can use the existing socket.id value as is (without overwriting it) so you don't break existing behavior. It is already guaranteed to be unique on the server.
You can use a different property name for your own id such as socket.userId and then you won't conflict.
If you need to, you can maintain a map between your own custom id and the socket.io socket.id so you could get to one from the other.
Similar question here: Socket.io custom client ID
generateId prop of io.engine object can be used for to set the custom id.
Using this way, the all socket ids can be created on the server side without any issue.
Actually I wrote an answer for a similar question today.
An example:
var app = require('express')();
var http = require('http').Server(app);
var io = require('socket.io')(http);
io.engine.generateId = function (req) {
// generate a new custom id here
return 1
}
io.on('connection', function (socket) {
// listing the default namespace rooms
console.log("rooms: ", io.nsps["/"].adapter.rooms);
})
The console output would be as the following:
rooms: { '/#1': Room { sockets: { '/#1': true }, length: 1 } }
It seems to be it has been handled.
It must be in mind that socket id must be unpredictable and unique value with considering security and the app operations!
Extra: If socket.id is returned as undefined because of your intense processes on your generateId method, async/await combination can be used to overcome this issue on node.js version 7.6.0 and later. handshake method of node_modules/engine.io/lib/server.js file should be changed as following:
former:
Server.prototype.handshake = function (transportName, req) {
var id = this.generateId(req);
...
}
new:
Server.prototype.handshake = async function (transportName, req) {
var id = await this.generateId(req);
...
}

Can you list users in Meteor without a login system?

For example, if I did a chatroom where all you ahve to do is enter a username (so you don't log in), can I still somehow list out all the people in that chatroom? How can I do this?
Instead of using the normal Meteor.users collection, it would probably be easiest to create your own collection for such simple authentication.
If you wanted to make it really simple (most likely, as long as you didn't care if 2 people have the same name), just store the name as a property of a chat room message document.
Edit - answer to comment:
To detect when a user disconnects, you can add an event handler in your publish function like this:
Meteor.publish('some_collection', function(){
var connectionId = this.connection ? this.connection.id : 'server';
this._session.socket.on("close", Meteor.bindEnvironment(function(){
// deal with connectionId closing
}));
});
You can do that.
Simply publish all users and every coming client should subscribe.
server:
Meteor.publish('allUsers', function(){
return Meteor.users.find({},{fields:{profile:1}});
})
client :
Meteor.startup(function(){
Meteor.subscribe('allUsers');
})
Template.listOfUsers.users = function(){
return Meteor.users.find();
}
This is very basic example, which should be adjusted to your needs.

Socket.io message event firing multiple times

I was trying to learn node and started creating a mashup with socket.io
The message transportation have begin but I have run into some trouble.
The message event is firing multiple times leading to a single message appearing multiple times on the recipient's box. I have routed the socket to exports.chat and was wondering if that is causing the problem?
To narrow down the problem: the messages are firing the number of times = the sequence of connection of the client. That is, if a client connects second, his messages will fire twice. three times for the client connecting third.
Here is the code snippet:
exports.chat = function(io, pseudoArray, req, res){
res.render('chat', {title: 'ChatPanel.'});
var users = 0;
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) { // First connection
users += 1;
// reloadUsers(io, users);
socket.on('message', function (data) { // Broadcast the message to all
if(pseudoSet(socket)) {
var transmit = {date : new Date().toISOString(), pseudo : returnPseudo(socket), message : data};
socket.broadcast.emit('message', transmit);
console.log("user "+ transmit['pseudo'] +" said \""+data+"\"");
}
});
socket.set('pseudo', req.session.user, function(){
pseudoArray.push(req.session.user);
socket.emit('pseudoStatus', 'ok');
console.log("user " + req.session.user + " connected");
});
socket.on('disconnect', function () { // Disconnection of the client
users -= 1;
// reloadUsers();
if (pseudoSet(socket)) {
var pseudo;
socket.get('pseudo', function(err, name) {
pseudo = name;
});
var index = pseudoArray.indexOf(pseudo);
pseudo.slice(index - 1, 1);
}
});
});
};
The whole part of socket.io code has to go outside external.chat function. Socket IO has to bind with the http/app server, you should not handle it within each request.
the messages are firing the number of times = the sequence of connection of the client
What essentially happening is, each time a new request arrives you are registering a event handler for message, hence it is fired as many times as the you have accessed chat URL.
io.socket.on('message', function (data) {...})
So I had the same problem. The solution is to close all your listeners on the socket.on('disconnect') event, this is what my code looks like -
socket.on('disconnect', function () {
socket.removeAllListeners('send message');
socket.removeAllListeners('disconnect');
io.removeAllListeners('connection');
});
Might not need to call it on disconnect, not sure but I do it anyway.
I think this misbehavior is because you are attempting to use one of the handful of built-in/reserved event names "message" as an application-specific message. To confirm, change your event name to "message2" or something else and see if the problem goes away. I believe at least "connect", "disconnect", and "message" are reserved. https://github.com/LearnBoost/socket.io/wiki/Exposed-events
Link: https://socket.io/docs/v3/listening-to-events/#socketoffeventname-listener
Please use socket.off method to removes the specified listener from the listener array for the event named eventName.
socket.off("message").on("message", this.UpdateChat);
Restarting the server can be responsible for several identical event listeners on the client side. If the client has not reloaded (restarted) you have to make sure that the old event listeners are deleted on the client side when establishing a new connection. You can do that with
io.socket.removeAllListeners()
SOCKET.IO v3.x
I don't really know why reserve event in socket.io are firing up multiple times, hence I make a logic that fits to our needs and address this problem,
I simply create a global mutable value that could change everytime the 'disconnect' fire up, here's the logic I did
let ACTIVE_USERS = []; //assume the propery of an object is { name, socket_id }
const connections = (socket) => {
socket.on("disconnect", (reason) => {
//lets check how many times it fires up
console.log('YOW', reason);
//mutate the ACTIVE_USERS
ACTIVE_USERS = ACTIVE_USERS .filter(user => {
//lets figure it out if this thing helps us
if(user.socket_id === socket.id){
console.log('HEY!!!');
socket.broadcast.emit('disconnected-user',[
message: `${user.name} has been disconnected`
})
}
})
});
}
and the result of it is here

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