WebSocket chat server

Sadly this weeks challenge did also not get a very good turn out. I know it should not have been to hard to complete this challenge, still I received two submissions for it. The results can be found here. If you have an idea how we could get more people to sent in their submissions, please reach out to me via twitter: @DailyJavascript.

For this weeks challenge you will be putting together a WebSocket server to handle chat messages. This is gonna be the first challenge in a three week series. The additions to the project will still be a surprise for now. To make sure you implement these challenges correctly I will provide you with some tests.

For this weeks challenge your server needs to pass the following tests:

'use strict';

const should = require('should');
const io = require('socket.io-client');

const socketURL = 'http://localhost:5000';

const options = {
  transports: ['websocket'],
  'force new connection': true
};

const chatUser1 = {'name':'Tom'};
const chatUser2 = {'name':'Sally'};
const chatUser3 = {'name':'Dana'};

describe('Testing The Chat Server', () => {

  it('Should broadcast new user once they connect', (done) => {
    let client = io.connect(socketURL, options);

    client.on('connect', (data) => {
      client.emit('connection name',chatUser1);
    });

    client.on('new user', (usersName) => {
      usersName.should.be.type('string');
      usersName.should.equal(chatUser1.name + ' has joined.');
      client.disconnect();
      done();
    });
  });


  it('Should broadcast new user to all users', (done) => {
    let client1 = io.connect(socketURL, options);

    client1.on('connect', (data) => {
      client1.emit('connection name', chatUser1);
      let client2 = io.connect(socketURL, options);

      client2.on('connect', (data) => {
        client2.emit('connection name', chatUser2);
      });

      client2.on('new user', (usersName) => {
        usersName.should.equal(chatUser2.name + ' has joined.');
        client2.disconnect();
      });

    });

    let numberOfUsers = 0;
    client1.on('new user', (usersName) => {
      numberOfUsers += 1;

      if(numberOfUsers === 2){
        usersName.should.equal(chatUser2.name + ' has joined.');
        client1.disconnect();
        done();
      }
    });
  });

  it('Should be able to broadcast messages', (done) => {
    let client1, client2, client3;
    let message = 'Hello World';
    let messages = 0;

    let checkMessage = (client) => {
      client.on('message', (msg) => {
        message.should.equal(msg);
        client.disconnect();
        messages++;
        if(messages === 3){
          done();
        };
      });
    };

    client1 = io.connect(socketURL, options);
    checkMessage(client1);

    client1.on('connect', (data) => {
      client2 = io.connect(socketURL, options);
      checkMessage(client2);

      client2.on('connect', (data) => {
        client3 = io.connect(socketURL, options);
        checkMessage(client3);

        client3.on('connect', (data) => {
          client2.send(message);
        });
      });
    });
  });


  it('Should be able to send private messages', (done) => {
    let client1, client2, client3;
    let message = {to: chatUser1.name, txt:'Private Hello World'};
    let messages = 0;

    let completeTest = () => {
      messages.should.equal(1);
      client1.disconnect();
      client2.disconnect();
      client3.disconnect();
      done();
    };

    let checkPrivateMessage = (client) => {
      client.on('private message', (msg) => {
        message.txt.should.equal(msg.txt);
        msg.from.should.equal(chatUser3.name);
        messages++;
        if(client === client1){
          setTimeout(completeTest, 40);
        };
      });
    };

    client1 = io.connect(socketURL, options);
    checkPrivateMessage(client1);

    client1.on('connect', (data) => {
      client1.emit('connection name', chatUser1);
      client2 = io.connect(socketURL, options);
      checkPrivateMessage(client2);

      client2.on('connect', (data) => {
        client2.emit('connection name', chatUser2);
        client3 = io.connect(socketURL, options);
        checkPrivateMessage(client3);

        client3.on('connect', (data) => {
          client3.emit('connection name', chatUser3);
          client3.emit('private message', message)
        });
      });
    });
  });
});

The requirements for this challenge are pretty straight forward.

• You need to be able to connect with a single user.
• You need to be able to connect two users or more.
• A user should be able to send a message to a chatroom
• A user should be able to send private messages to other users

The tests can be copied form this page but I also setup a repo which you can fork Please deploy your server to Heroku. You can create a free account here and follow a very simple tutorial if you are not familiar with how to deploy on Heroku. Submit the URL where your server is running to this Google Form before Friday next week.

I hope you guys will find this more challenging then last week. Happy coding.