Faye Service Gem

This gem can extend a Ruby project such as Rails, Sinatra, Padrino, Rack, etc. It provides a simple way to communicate with any Faye server instance.

To Use This Gem

Add it to your Gemfile

gem 'faye_service', '~> 1.0.1'

Or install it locally on your system:

gem install faye_service

Prerequisites

You need to have at least one instance of Faye running locally on your machine. If you do not have an instance of Faye to connect to, consider using this docker container and this Github repo:

Github Repo: https://github.com/amerlescucodez/faye-docker

Docker Container: https://hub.docker.com/r/amerlescucodez/docker-faye-ruby

docker pull amerlescucodez/docker-faye-ruby

You can use this docker-compose.yaml template to get the necessary requirements running locally:

version: "3.7"

services:
  redis:
    image: redis:alpine
    ports:
      - 6379:6379
    restart: always
    networks:
      - primary

  faye:
    image: amerlescucodez/docker-faye-redis:latest
    links:
      - redis
    depends_on:
      - redis
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 4242:4242
      - 4443:4443
    expose:
      - 4242
      - 4443
    env_file:
      - .faye.env.development
    volumes:
      - ./host/path/to/ssl/certificates:/etc/ssl/certs/faye
      - ./host/path/to/faye/tokens:/usr/local/faye/tokens
    networks:
      - primary


networks:
  primary:

Then you should be able to execute:

docker-compose up -d

And then be able to access https://localhost:4242/faye/client.js

Note: If you're placing Faye inside a docker-compose file that also includes your application, you need to make sure that

Installation into Rails

Important Note: If you wish to use SSL with Faye, please change all occurences of http://localhost:4242 to https://localhost:4443 (or to the specified values in your instance of faye.) Please read this documentation about SSL support: https://github.com/amerlescucodez/faye-docker-ruby#generate-ssl-certificate

Open your Gemfile and add the following dependency:

gem "faye_service", "~> 1.0.1"

Create the faye configuration file:

Edit config/initializers/faye.rb:

require 'faye_service'
FayeService.configure do |config|
  config.url = "http://localhost:4242"
  config.auth_token = ""
  config.auth_service = ""
end

Sending Messages

From A Controller

app/controllers/sample_controller.rb

class SampleController < ApplicationController
	def index
		FayeService.publish("/channel/name","message")
	end
end

From A Model

app/models/sample.rb

class Sample
	def call_with_nothing
		FayeService.publish("/channel/name","static message")
	end
	
	def call_to_user_channel_with(user_id,message)
		FayeService.publish("/channel/user/#{user_id}", message) if user_id.instance_of?(String)
	end
	
	def call_with_big_message
		message = {
			:friends => %w{Claire Walt Ryland Sylvia Mekhi Lili}, 
			:enemies => %w{Batman Robbin Garfield Snoopy}
		}
		FayeService.publish("/channel/name",message)
	end
end

Receiving Messages

Include Faye's main JS file

app/views/layout/application.html.erb

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>WebSocketsExample</title>
  <%= stylesheet_link_tag    "application", :media => "all" %>
  <%= javascript_include_tag "http://localhost:4242/faye/client.js","application" %>
  <%= csrf_meta_tags %>
</head>
<body>

<%= yield %>

</body>
</html>

Subscribe to Faye Channel within a Controller's View

app/views/sample/index.html.erb

<h2>Push Notification Example</h2>
<script type="text/javascript">
  $(function() {
    var faye = new Faye.Client('http://localhost:4242/faye');
    varsubscription = faye.subscribe("/my/awesome/channel", function(data) {
      alert(data); 
    });
    subscription.then(function(message){
      console.log("Successfully subscribed to Faye.");
    }, function(error){
      console.log("Error connecting to Faye.");
    });
  });
</script>

data is a variable accessible with in the block of faye.subscribe that will either contain JSON data or a string. The best practice section in the Faye Server documentation states that you should always send json messages to keep things consistant. It'll make your life easier.

faye_service

Runtime