I was looking at Kanaka's reply to a websockets question here.
If I want to write a native app in PHP to use a websocket based webservice, where do I start? Are there any client libraries available in PHP to write native linux clients?
Basically, my server can work on a RESTful architecture for 90% of the time. However, there is one reason for the server to alert the client, so REST won't work here. So I am wondering if websockets is an answer here for me as compared to periodic polling by client.
Why not write the 90% using normal REST and do the remaining part where notifications are sent to the client using web sockets?
Here is a github project that looks like it might be what you want https://github.com/nicokaiser/php-websocket
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I am trying to implement a very simple self-hosted (docker) pubsub client update system using websockets or SSE for my PHP application.
I would like that a specific javascript action on my website triggers a php server-side update (via ajax) which should then lead to an update to all subscribed devices for the particular channel/topic. The subscribed devices should use javascript listening to one channel each.
Do you know any simple PHP ws libraries which are capable of that? Can SSE be triggered in that way and also utilize channels? How about in-built PHP socket function? Ideally I would like to stick to PHP solution in order not to deal with translations and in-between REST APIs.
After researching this for days and going through solutions like RabbitMQ, Redis, Kafka, RatchetPHP, ZeroMQ, socket.io, RPC, SSE and etc I am completely lost. I need some guidance on which way to go.
Among all possible solutions here is how I would do it:
Install a web socket server, preferably implemented in PHP, on you Linux system.
Your web clients register with the server and listen for messages like broadcast from the server.
Your ajax script registers also with the server and sends a broadcast to the server if all work is done.
The server passes the broadcast to all registered clients.
You could use my implementation of such a web socket server that comes with all the needed client
libraries for JavaScript as well as for PHP that implement broadcast and feedback.
See https://github.com/napengam/phpWebSocketServer
I love programming using PHP. Recently I've wondered wether to spend more time learning node.js or not. Then I stumbled across PHP websocket. I saw an example making a live chat in websocket, where messages was sent in live time.
However, I can't seem to find any documentation or, better yet, explanation of what this feature actually does! Can anyone explain what PHP websocket does (technically), or send link to the correct documentation?
Wouldn't PHP websocket make it possible to push any type of content in real time to users, just like node.js can? Or have I misunderstood?
WebSockets are a bi-directional persistent connection from a web browser to a server. Read WebSocket on WikiPedia and Mozilla Web Docs
node.js and WebSocket are 2 different things. node.js is programming language built on the Google V8 JavaScript engine, whereas WebSocket is communication protocol.
Yes, WebSocket can help you push real-time updates to your client.
Here is One of the site that can help you work in WebSocket using PHP - http://socketo.me - Documentation URL : http://socketo.me/docs/
I have a project were I am required to add push notification for Cordova AngularJS Push Notification using PHP on server side which gives JSON array as output. I can implement chat etc using this, but I want to know how to implement it in push notification or accessing native app API. Firstly I thought using Javascript SetInterval, but it slow downs the app, and checks the API everytime...
For Cordova push notification you can take a look here:
http://phonegappro.com/tutorials/apache-cordova-phonegap-push-notification-tutorial-part-1/
Still, let's review some other methods of sending data to the client using Web APIs:
Long polling - keep the connection open on the server side with no or long timeout, and return a result when you want to send a push notification.
Use WebSockets - open a steady TCP connection to the server and transmit messages in both directions (unlike HTTP's request/response model).
Use PushManager - this is an experimental technology that is not yet supported on mobile devices, so I guess this is a no-go for you.
Use simple polling - every now and then poll the server for a new message.
Long polling and Web Sockets will overload the server if you'll have a lot of concurrently open connections, so I wouldn't go there. Also Web sockets are mostly used for communicating between clients (server passes the client info to both clients, then they can communicate on their own without the sever intermediating between them).
PushManager is too new a technology not yet supported in mobile.
For what you want (mobile I guess, as you want to use Cordova), and without knowing what you are actually trying to achieve, I would say go with #4. I understand you already tried it, but perhaps try to lower the polling rate to every 30 seconds or so.
I understand that while debugging it doesn't seem nice to send something from the server then wait the better part of a 30 seconds period until it appears on the client, but if you think of it from the user's view point you'll see that the user doesn't know when the server sends the data, so it does appear immediate.
However, if you're writing a chat client, then I would go with web-sockets, using the server to connect the two (or more) clients in the chat and letting them pass the messages directly. If you want the chat to be server backed, just periodically send the transcript to the server using simple AJAX.
DIY vs Hosted Realtime Data Stream Network Service
If you do not expect to have more than a few thousand clients using your app, the DIY (do it yourself) sockets technologies (WebSockets, Socket.io, etc) is feasible. Beyond a few thousand (many of our customers say in the range of 5 to 10 thousand) you will experience difficulty (and large expense on server resources and scalable code) scaling your service.
Using a hosted realtime data stream network service like PubNub, Pusher, Ably, etc will be less costly and complex and it will just work. With some of the hosted services (PubNub for sure - which I work for - full disclosure) provides the ability to publish the message in realtime and include a push payload (for GCM, APNS and MPNS) that will also send the push notification if the app is in the background or not running.
With PubNub BLOCKS, you can also implement server side code that runs in the PubNub Network to inspect, manipulate or process the message without having your server do the work. This means you could send the message to other third party services: translate message to another language, use AI services for whatever reason, send an SMS/email/etc and much much more.
I'm looking into the development of a site where socket use is a must for real time updates. I understand with wordpress it is difficult to incorporate node.js and socket.io and was wondering if this is the case with drupal. Specifically could I incorporate node.js and socket.io with php? What specific steps would I need to take? I appreciate the help and of course if you give me a good answer, I'll rate you up.
There are currently Node.js modules that connect to Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress. I wrote the one for Joomla: https://github.com/jlleblanc/nodejs-joomla You can find all of these through NPM. First, you would download one of these modules, then you would also download the Socket.io module. Then you would write server side code connecting the CMS to Socket.io. Finally, you would write client-side code to talk to the socket running in Node.
You can have it separated and since you want some client-server communication with node.js, you can have it - outside Drupal (this is the easiest and cleanest way).
CMS you use (be it Drupal or Wordpress) does not limit your JavaScript from using socket.io and node.js for the calls you want to be made outside the CMS server-side code. You can eg. read the same database Drupal/Wordpress does, but using Node.js and returning the results directly to the client-side JavaScript script.
You can integrate Socket.IO with whatever technology you like, but you need to think of them as 2 separate parts that need to communicate.
I see 2 solutions for Socket.IO to communicate with an external service (Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, whatever):
1) Making a rest API for your Socket.IO application (for example using Express for the API layer and then passing messages to Socket.IO with an EventEmitter).
2) The better solution in my opinion is to use a message queue like Redis, RabbitMQ or ZeroMQ. The Drupal website would send a message down the channel to Socket.IO and then Socket.IO would send that message to the client(s).
If you are creating a system that needs authentication also, I suggest you don't let your users send message directly with Socket.IO, but make an Ajax call to your main server instead (Drupal for ex.). That way you can check the user's identity more easily. (This scenario would be a fit for a chat based system that requires authentication)
Although this video tutorial is for EventMachine with Faye, the same logic could apply to your app: http://railscasts.com/episodes/260-messaging-with-faye
I was trying to develop a web based chat system using PHP. I created one with the combination of jQuery and PHP but this setup is using lot of network bandwidth as it is continuously sending / receiving data to check whether a new message has been received or not (currently every 1 second). So I need to develop a system that will automatically display the message once a message is received from the other end without the need of sending a request to the server to see if there is a new message received.
I read in many places that this can be done using Jabber. I am really new to this jabber technology, so any help creating a new Jabber based chat using PHP will be greatly appreciated.
Jabber (also known as XMPP) is more of a protocol, so it's not really the solution you're looking for.
HTML 5 web sockets are a great new technology to achieve this. Rather than polling to see if there are any messages, the server can "push" new messages to the browser.
The client side code is JavaScript. The server side can be anything implementing the web socket protocol. There are probably some PHP libraries to write the server side code, but I have written a few Ruby web socket servers using EventMachine and em-websocket.