In the previous post we saw that Web Sockets are the best invention since sliced bread: they bring to the web the bidirectional full-duplex communication traditional desktop applications have been enjoying for quite some time now. It solves many current problems, and enables much more powerful applications than current standards.

I’ve developed a very basic Web Socket server implementation in C# just as a proof of concept. It handles the most basic operations you would expect from a server: start a new connection, disconnect, and send and receive data. Besides, I’ve developed the client part as well using regular ASP.NET. Actually it’s just plain HTML and JavaScript being served from an ASP.NET server – this example doesn’t use any fancy runat=server controls or anything of the like. The functionality is achieved with very simple and easy to understand JavaScript.

So what does this example do? It provides two projects: a Web Socket server and a Web Socket client. The server is a windows console application that once executed just sits there waiting for a connection request. When a client connects, the server sends its date and time to the client every 10 seconds. The client is a web page with some controls to connect/disconnect and to send data to the server, as well as a log window to see what’s going on. Take a look at the example at the bottom of the page.

Here’s a description of the public members of the Web Socket Server:

// Possible status of the server
enum ServerStatusLevel { Off, WaitingConnection, ConnectionEstablished };
// Constructor of the server with default values
WebSocketServer();
// Constructor of the server with the specified values
WebSocketServer (int serverPort, string serverLocation, string connectionOrigin);
// Close the server and release all resources
void Dispose();
// Start the server and make it listen for connection requests
void StartServer();
// Send data to the connected client
void Send (string message);
// Whether events should be logged or not
bool LogEvents;
// Origin of the connection
string ConnectionOrigin;
// Location of the server
string ServerLocation;
// Port of the server
int ServerPort;
// Current status of the server
ServerStatusLevel Status;
// Fired when data is received from the client
event DataReceivedEventHandler DataReceived;
// Fired when client is disconnected
event DisconnectedEventHandler Disconnected;
// Fired when a new connection is established
event NewConnectionEventHandler NewConnection;

Note how I provide two constructors for the Web Socket Server class: one with default parameters (if you want to keep it as simple as possible), and another one to specify the values you want. Anyways, you can still change them after creating the new instance, as the properties are public. You can also specify whether you want the server to log out the events to the console with the LogEvents property.

In order to get the data being sent from the client, you must attach your own function to the DataReceived event, which will then receive the message as a parameter.

So here’s how you would use this Web Socket Server:

public void Test()
{
    WebSocketServer WSServer = new WebSocketServer();  // Default values
    WSServer.NewConnection += new NewConnectionEventHandler(WSServer_NewConnection);
    WSServer.Disconnected += new DisconnectedEventHandler(WSServer_Disconnected);
    WSServer.DataReceived += new DataReceivedEventHandler(WSServer_DataReceived);
    WSServer.StartServer();
}

void WSServer_DataReceived(string message, EventArgs e)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Data received from the client: " + message);
}

void WSServer_Disconnected(EventArgs e)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Server disconnected");
}

void WSServer_NewConnection(EventArgs e)
{
    Console.WriteLine("New connection established");
    WSServer.Send("Hello new client! I hope you enjoy your visit!");
}

It’s a very simple Web Socket server, so it’s very easy to use. You shouldn’t have much problem understanding it.

Go ahead and download the Visual Studio solution and give it a try!

UPDATE (October 12th, 2010):

The Web Socket protocol is not closed yet, so it is being constantly updated. This means that previous Web Socket server implementations might stop working after an update has been made to the API. The original version of the code I released here complied with version 75 of the Web Socket draft. The current version is 76, so I updated my code and released a second project.

No idea of what I’m talking about? I’ll make it easy for you… download the v76 implementation first, and if it doesn’t work then check out the v75 implementation. If you’re using one of the latest browsers, you should have no trouble.

WebSocketsTest (draft 75).zip (Older browsers)

WebSocketsTest (draft 76).zip (Latest browsers)

Related posts:

  1. HTML 5 Web Sockets
  2. AJAX call using an ASP.NET web page
  3. AJAX call using an ASP.NET HTTP Handler
  4. AJAX call using an ASP.NET Page Method
  5. AJAX call using ASP.NET Web Services