webSocketServer node.js how to differentiate clients

Question

I am trying to use sockets with node.js, I succeded but I don\'t know how to differentiate clients in my code. The part concerning sockets is this:

var WebSo         


        

Answer 1

It depends which websocket you are using. For example, the fastest one, found here: https://github.com/websockets/ws is able to do a broadcast via this method:

var WebSocketServer = require('ws').Server,
   wss = new WebSocketServer({host:'xxxx',port:xxxx}),
   users = [];
wss.broadcast = function broadcast(data) {
wss.clients.forEach(function each(client) {
  client.send(data);
 });
};

Then later in your code you can use wss.broadcast(message) to send to all. For sending a PM to an individual user I do the following:

(1) In my message that I send to the server I include a username (2) Then, in onMessage I save the websocket in the array with that username, then retrieve it by username later:

wss.on('connection', function(ws) {

  ws.on('message', function(message) {

      users[message.userName] = ws;

(3) To send to a particular user you can then do users[userName].send(message);