Sample project to learn more about how Web Sockets work.
Clone this repository and run the following commands:
npm install
npm run devThis should fire up the NodeJS server and let you know that's is listening on ws://localhost:8080. So now you can open the /websocket/frontend/index.html on your Browser and check the DevTool's Console as you click on the Greet button.
Web Sockets are a another way that a Server and a Client can communicate between each other.
Tradicitonally, information is sent to the Client only when they request it (tipically via a GET call). But when we want our Clients to have the most up to date information, we could try to develop a timer based approach of every X seconds/minutes/hours, to fetch more data. But when there's a need for a more instant method, for example:
- When you have chat app where multiple members of the group can send and receive messages in real time.
- When you want to refresh data instately on the
Clientlike stock market app with a dashboard.
This is where Web Sockets shine.
We can make use of the ws npm package on a NodeJS server and use the built-in version of that same library in the client.