Learning Node.js + socket.io - a simple streaming example.

I learned about Node.js not too long ago (Node is actually very new) and found its non-blocking io very interesting. Socket.io is a Node module that enables real-time communication between web client and server. It basically chooses the best supported streaming technology for the client if native streaming technology is not available (Websocket for example). I am a total beginner to both Node and socket.io and I wrote a little more complicated example than the basic one on socket.io home page. In this example, a random number is generated every 4 seconds and broadcasted to the network (see the video link at the end of this post).

Server:
Install socket.io if it’s not installed:
npm install socket.io -g

var io = require('/usr/local/lib/node_modules/socket.io').listen(8080);
var t;  // I usually don't like using global variables but hope it's ok for DEMO's purpose

function rnd() {
    var num=Math.floor(Math.random()*1000);
    return num;
}
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) {
    t=setInterval( function() {
        var n=rnd();
        socket.broadcast.emit('stream', {n:n.toString()});
    }, 4000);
    socket.on('action', function (data) {
        console.log('received action');
        if(data.todo=='stop') {
            socket.broadcast.emit('stream', {n:'Stopped'});
            console.log('stopping timer now.');
            clearInterval(t);
        } else if(data.todo='run') {
            // the setInterval code definitely can
            // be combined/optimized with the one above
            // again for DEMO's sake I just leave it as is
            t=setInterval( function() {
                var n=rnd();
                socket.broadcast.emit('stream', {n:n.toString()});
            }, 4000);
        }
    });
});

Client:
Note:
The client socket.io.js code can be found at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/socket.io/node_modules/socket.io-client/dist on my Ubuntu 10.10

client.html, served using Apache (I know this can be changed to use Node.js totally, with some help from Express webframe)

<script src="socket.io.js"></script>
<script>
    var sw='run';
  var socket = io.connect('http://192.168.1.200:8080');

  socket.on('stream', function (data) {
        document.getElementById('number').innerHTML=data.n;
  });

    function stop_timer() {
        if(sw=='run') {
            socket.emit( 'action', {todo: 'stop'} );
            sw='stop';
        } else {
            socket.emit( 'action', {todo: 'run'} );
        }
    }
</script>
<div style="border:1px solid #ccc" id="number">&nbsp;</div>
<a href="#" onclick="stop_timer();return false;">Action</a>

Here’s a quick video made with ScreenFlow (didn’t purchase so pls forgive the watermark):

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