Nodejs include socket.io in router page

Question

I have an express node app, and I'm trying to keep my code neat by not having all the socket.io stuff in app.js

I don't know the best way to go about this. Here is my initial thought which doesn't feel like the cleanest one

// app.js
var express = require('express')
    , app = express()
    , server = require('http').createServer(app)
    , url = require('url')
    , somePage = require('./routes/somePage.js')
    , path = require('path');

    app.configure(function(){...});

    app.get('/', somePage.index);

and the route

// somePage.js
    exports.index = function (req, res, server) {
        io = require('socket.io').listern(server)
        res.render('index',{title: 'Chat Room'})

        io.sockets.on('connection', function(socket) {
            ...code...
        }
    }

I feel like I'm close but not quite there

lemonad · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-25 17:01:27Z

9

+50

I don't know if I'm reading that right but it looks like you are starting a socket server on every request for /, which I'm frankly a little surprised works at all.

This is how I'm separating out the socket.io code from app.js (using express 3.x which is a bit different than 2.x):

// app.js
var express = require('express');
var app = express();

var server_port = config.get('SERVER_PORT');
server = http.createServer(app).listen(server_port, function () {
    var addr = server.address();
    console.log('Express server listening on http://' + addr.address + ':' + addr.port);
});

var sockets = require('./sockets');
sockets.socketServer(app, server);


// sockets.js
var socketio = require('socket.io');
exports.socketServer = function (app, server) {
  var io = socketio.listen(server);

  io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
    ...
  });
};

Hope that helps!

edited Sep 25, 2012 at 17:01

answered Sep 23, 2012 at 14:35

lemonad

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5 Comments

Marius Miliunas Over a year ago

Thank you. that solved it. This is how I applied it to the final get. app.get('/socket',function(req,res) { socket.socketServer(req,res,app,server) });

lemonad Over a year ago

Thank you for the feedback on your success! I'm very glad I could be of help! :)

lemonad Over a year ago

I would definitely start the server outside of an app.get() though. I've added some code that was missing to the above example. I would recommend just starting the server as I do above, at the end of app.js.

Marius Miliunas Over a year ago

my socket.js is identical to what you have, the only difference is I replaced your 'sockets.socketServer(app, server);' line with my app.get statement. Is that a no-no?

lemonad Over a year ago

I take that to mean that you're setting up socket.io every time someone visits /socket. You only need to start the server once and then clients can communicate with it as long as your app stays up. That is, the socket.io part is not connected with a specific view.

Zhe Hu · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-29 16:27:25Z

a similar approach is to pass app into index.js file and initiate http and socketio server there.

//app.js
//regular expressjs configuration stuff

require('./routes/index')(app);   //all the app.get should go into index.js

Since app is passed into index.js file, we can do the app.get() routing stuff inside index.js, as well as connecting socketio

//index.js
module.exports = function(app){

var server = require('http').createServer(app)
    ,io = require('socket.io').listen(server);

app.get('/', function(req, res){
 });

server.listen(app.get('port'), function(){
   console.log("Express server listening on port " + app.get('port'));
});


io.sockets.on('connection', function(socket){  
   socket.on('my event', function(data){
   console.log(data);
  });
});

io.set('log level',1);

//io.sockets.emit(...)

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