sockly 🧦

Sockly is the easiest way to work with an API over WebSockets or a WebRTC data channel.

Instead of endless message passing, you expose a function or object at one end. At the other end of the connection you simply call the function or use the object properties and mehods.

For example, using a WebSocket, on the server you would:

const calculator = {
  name: 'Awesome calculator',
  add(a, b) {
    return a + b;
  },
  subtract(a, b) {
    return a - b;
  }
};
sockly.expose(calculator, webSocket);

On the client, simply call that calculator

const calculator = sockly.link(webSocket);
await calculator.add(4, 6);       // 10
await calculator.subtract(6, 4);  // 2
await calculator.name;            // Awesome calculator

Use Cases

Any time you use WebSockets or RTCDataChannel for p2p applications on the web (Chat app, games, etc).

Yes, one could manually add message handling easily, but it gets really annoying to maintain as more API is added over the socket.

It's just easier to add the new API method and just call it from the client without making any other changes!

Note: Sockly does not deal with creation/connection/lifecycle of WebSockets or WebRTC channels.

Install

Install from npm:

npm install --save sockly

ES6 import:

import {link, expose} from 'sockly'

Or using pika in the browser

import * as sockly from 'https://cdn.pika.dev/sockly';

Usage

expose a function or an object

and then link the exposed object at the other end.

Examples

See the live version of the calculator example above:

Socket server code

Client code

How does it work

Sockly creates a Proxy when you link a connection. This proxy intercepts property gets/sets, and method calls. The proxy does the underlying message passing with the other end of the socket.

License

MIT License (c) Preet Shihn