How can I send and receive WebSocket messages on the server side?

Question

• How can I send and receive messages on the server side using WebSocket, as per the protocol?

• Why do I get seemingly random bytes at the server when

Answer 1

PHP Implementation:

function encode($message)
{
    $length = strlen($message);

    $bytesHeader = [];
    $bytesHeader[0] = 129; // 0x1 text frame (FIN + opcode)

    if ($length <= 125) {
            $bytesHeader[1] = $length;
    } else if ($length >= 126 && $length <= 65535) {
            $bytesHeader[1] = 126;
            $bytesHeader[2] = ( $length >> 8 ) & 255;
            $bytesHeader[3] = ( $length      ) & 255;
    } else {
            $bytesHeader[1] = 127;
            $bytesHeader[2] = ( $length >> 56 ) & 255;
            $bytesHeader[3] = ( $length >> 48 ) & 255;
            $bytesHeader[4] = ( $length >> 40 ) & 255;
            $bytesHeader[5] = ( $length >> 32 ) & 255;
            $bytesHeader[6] = ( $length >> 24 ) & 255;
            $bytesHeader[7] = ( $length >> 16 ) & 255;
            $bytesHeader[8] = ( $length >>  8 ) & 255;
            $bytesHeader[9] = ( $length       ) & 255;
    }

    $str = implode(array_map("chr", $bytesHeader)) . $message;

    return $str;
}

Answer 2

C++ Implementation (not by me) here. Note that when your bytes are over 65535, you need to shift with a long value as shown here.

Answer 3

pimvdb's answer implemented in python:

def DecodedCharArrayFromByteStreamIn(stringStreamIn):
    #turn string values into opererable numeric byte values
    byteArray = [ord(character) for character in stringStreamIn]
    datalength = byteArray[1] & 127
    indexFirstMask = 2 
    if datalength == 126:
        indexFirstMask = 4
    elif datalength == 127:
        indexFirstMask = 10
    masks = [m for m in byteArray[indexFirstMask : indexFirstMask+4]]
    indexFirstDataByte = indexFirstMask + 4
    decodedChars = []
    i = indexFirstDataByte
    j = 0
    while i < len(byteArray):
        decodedChars.append( chr(byteArray[i] ^ masks[j % 4]) )
        i += 1
        j += 1
    return decodedChars

An Example of usage:

fromclient = '\x81\x8c\xff\xb8\xbd\xbd\xb7\xdd\xd1\xd1\x90\x98\xea\xd2\x8d\xd4\xd9\x9c'
# this looks like "?ŒOÇ¿¢gÓ ç\Ð=«ož" in unicode, received by server
print DecodedCharArrayFromByteStreamIn(fromclient)
# ['H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', ' ', 'W', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd', '!']

Answer 4

Thank you for the answer, i would like to add onto hfern's(above) Python version to include the Sending function if any one is interested.

def DecodedWebsockRecieve(stringStreamIn):
    byteArray =  stringStreamIn 
    datalength = byteArray[1] & 127
    indexFirstMask = 2 
    if datalength == 126:
        indexFirstMask = 4
    elif datalength == 127:
        indexFirstMask = 10
    masks = [m for m in byteArray[indexFirstMask : indexFirstMask+4]]
    indexFirstDataByte = indexFirstMask + 4
    decodedChars = []
    i = indexFirstDataByte
    j = 0
    while i < len(byteArray):
        decodedChars.append( chr(byteArray[i] ^ masks[j % 4]) )
        i += 1
        j += 1
    return ''.join(decodedChars)

def EncodeWebSockSend(socket,data):
    bytesFormatted = []
    bytesFormatted.append(129)

    bytesRaw = data.encode()
    bytesLength = len(bytesRaw)
    if bytesLength <= 125 :
        bytesFormatted.append(bytesLength)
    elif bytesLength >= 126 and bytesLength <= 65535 :
        bytesFormatted.append(126)
        bytesFormatted.append( ( bytesLength >> 8 ) & 255 )
        bytesFormatted.append( bytesLength & 255 )
    else :
        bytesFormatted.append( 127 )
        bytesFormatted.append( ( bytesLength >> 56 ) & 255 )
        bytesFormatted.append( ( bytesLength >> 48 ) & 255 )
        bytesFormatted.append( ( bytesLength >> 40 ) & 255 )
        bytesFormatted.append( ( bytesLength >> 32 ) & 255 )
        bytesFormatted.append( ( bytesLength >> 24 ) & 255 )
        bytesFormatted.append( ( bytesLength >> 16 ) & 255 )
        bytesFormatted.append( ( bytesLength >>  8 ) & 255 )
        bytesFormatted.append( bytesLength & 255 )

    bytesFormatted = bytes(bytesFormatted)
    bytesFormatted = bytesFormatted + bytesRaw
    socket.send(bytesFormatted) 

Usage for reading:

bufSize = 1024     
read = DecodedWebsockRecieve(socket.recv(bufSize))

Usage for writing:

EncodeWebSockSend(sock,"hellooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo")

Answer 5

In addition to the PHP frame encoding function, here follows a decode function:

function Decode($M){
    $M = array_map("ord", str_split($M));
    $L = $M[1] AND 127;

    if ($L == 126)
        $iFM = 4;
    else if ($L == 127)
        $iFM = 10;
    else
        $iFM = 2;

    $Masks = array_slice($M, $iFM, 4);

    $Out = "";
    for ($i = $iFM + 4, $j = 0; $i < count($M); $i++, $j++ ) {
        $Out .= chr($M[$i] ^ $Masks[$j % 4]);
    }
    return $Out;
}

I've implemented this and also other functions in an easy-to-use WebSocket PHP class here.

Answer 6

JavaScript implementation:

function encodeWebSocket(bytesRaw){
    var bytesFormatted = new Array();
    bytesFormatted[0] = 129;
    if (bytesRaw.length <= 125) {
        bytesFormatted[1] = bytesRaw.length;
    } else if (bytesRaw.length >= 126 && bytesRaw.length <= 65535) {
        bytesFormatted[1] = 126;
        bytesFormatted[2] = ( bytesRaw.length >> 8 ) & 255;
        bytesFormatted[3] = ( bytesRaw.length      ) & 255;
    } else {
        bytesFormatted[1] = 127;
        bytesFormatted[2] = ( bytesRaw.length >> 56 ) & 255;
        bytesFormatted[3] = ( bytesRaw.length >> 48 ) & 255;
        bytesFormatted[4] = ( bytesRaw.length >> 40 ) & 255;
        bytesFormatted[5] = ( bytesRaw.length >> 32 ) & 255;
        bytesFormatted[6] = ( bytesRaw.length >> 24 ) & 255;
        bytesFormatted[7] = ( bytesRaw.length >> 16 ) & 255;
        bytesFormatted[8] = ( bytesRaw.length >>  8 ) & 255;
        bytesFormatted[9] = ( bytesRaw.length       ) & 255;
    }
    for (var i = 0; i < bytesRaw.length; i++){
        bytesFormatted.push(bytesRaw.charCodeAt(i));
    }
    return bytesFormatted;
}

function decodeWebSocket (data){
    var datalength = data[1] & 127;
    var indexFirstMask = 2;
    if (datalength == 126) {
        indexFirstMask = 4;
    } else if (datalength == 127) {
        indexFirstMask = 10;
    }
    var masks = data.slice(indexFirstMask,indexFirstMask + 4);
    var i = indexFirstMask + 4;
    var index = 0;
    var output = "";
    while (i < data.length) {
        output += String.fromCharCode(data[i++] ^ masks[index++ % 4]);
    }
    return output;
}