Simple Way to Implement Server Sent Events in Node.js?

Question

I\'ve looked around and it seems as if all the ways to implement SSEs in Node.js are through more complex code, but it seems like there should be an easier way to send and recei

Answer 1

I'm adding a simple implementation of SSE here. It's just one Node.js file.

You can have a look at the result here: https://glossy-ox.glitch.me/

const http = require('http');
const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  // Server-sent events endpoint
  if (req.url === '/events') {
    res.writeHead(200, {
      'Content-Type': 'text/event-stream',
      'Cache-Control': 'no-cache',
      'Connection': 'keep-alive',
    });

    const refreshRate = 1000; // in milliseconds
    return setInterval(() => {
      const id = Date.now();
      const data = `Hello World ${id}`;
      const message =
        `retry: ${refreshRate}\nid:${id}\ndata: ${data}\n\n`;
      res.write(message);
    }, refreshRate);
  }

  // Client side
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
  res.end(`
    
    
      
        
        
      
      
        

      
      
    
  `);
});

server.listen(port);

server.on('error', (err) => {
  console.log(err);
  process.exit(1);
});

server.on('listening', () => {
  console.log(`Listening on port ${port}`);
});