Random chat with php/ mysql /jQuery

Question

I am doing random chat like http://www.omegle.com/ for fun. Here how it goes:

Person logins, his id is inserted in seaching_chat table. He presses "Search" button and if there any other people in searching_chat, we connect them and delete information from seaching_chat table. If there are no people in the table, we use javascript and every 10 seconds check the mysql database to find out if somebody loged in.

So, is it the most efficient way to do such a thing? Any advices, ideas?

Rudie · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-05 19:19:29Z

2

WebSockets and nodejs are insanely difficult and too comprehensive for something easy like this. A long pull is indeed a good idea (the simplest and best imo). A simple, closing request every 2 or 5 seconds doesn't cost anything either, because there's always only 1 person waiting/firing those requests. 2 people -> connect. 3 people -> 2 ppl connected and 1 waiting. etc

answered Apr 5, 2011 at 19:19

Rudie

54.2k42 gold badges137 silver badges176 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Carl Zulauf · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-05 19:08:02Z

1

That sounds like a reasonable solution, but to not make matched users wait up to 10 seconds before they are connected with another user you may want to look at doing a "long pull" where the ajax connection to your server-side login check script is held open until another user logs in... then your server script finally responds with the proper payload to let the user's javascript know to redirect to the chat room.

You could also do this with WebSockets, which would probably be a great tech to base the chat room on if you want it to be highly responsive... but browser support is a bit weak right now.

answered Apr 5, 2011 at 19:08

Carl Zulauf

39.6k2 gold badges38 silver badges47 bronze badges

Comments

user524276 · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-05 19:13:32Z

0

Yes, I think WebSockets is the way to go with this. Take a look at node.js and socket.io. Socket.io provides a nice way to do WebSockets and even supports older browsers.

answered Apr 5, 2011 at 19:13

user524276

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Random chat with php/ mysql /jQuery

3 Answers 3

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related