rack-stream

rack-stream is middleware for building multi-protocol streaming rack endpoints. For a general introduction, check out "Building Streaming REST APIs with Ruby".

Update I've stopped working on this project for now. I found it tricky to integrate with existing non-evented Ruby web applications and haven't found a practical way to deploy this for production applications. To add pubsub or push to a traditional application, I've been using Pusher or Faye.

# Gemfile
gem 'rack-stream'

bundle

# config.ru
require 'rack/stream'

class App
  include Rack::Stream::DSL

  stream do
    after_open do
      count = 0
      @timer = EM.add_periodic_timer(1) do
        if count != 3
          chunk "chunky #{count}\n"
          count += 1
        else
          # Connection isn't closed until #close is called.
          # Useful if you're building a firehose API
          close
        end
      end
    end

    before_close do
      @timer.cancel
      chunk "monkey!\n"
    end

    [200, {'Content-Type' => 'text/plain'}, []]
  end
end

app = Rack::Builder.app do
  use Rack::Stream
  run App.new
end

run app

To run the example:

> thin start -R config.ru -p 3000
> curl -i -N http://localhost:3000/
>> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
>> Content-Type: text/plain
>> Transfer-Encoding: chunked
>>
>> chunky 0
>> chunky 1
>> chunky 2
>> monkey

This same endpoint can be accessed via WebSockets or EventSource, see 'Multi-Protocol Support' below. Full examples can be found in the examples directory.

When using rack-stream, downstream apps can access the Rack::Stream::App instance via env['rack.stream']. This object is used to control when the connection is closed, and what is streamed. Rack::Stream::DSL delegates access methods to env['rack.stream'] on the downstream rack app.

Rack::Stream::App instances are in one of the follow states:

• new
• open
• closed
• errored

Each state is described below.

When a request first comes in, rack-stream processes any downstream rack apps and uses their status and headers for its response. Any downstream response bodies are queued for streaming once the headers and status have been sent. Any calls to #chunk before a connection is opened is queued to be sent after a connection opens.

use Rack::Stream

# once Rack::Stream instance is :open, 'Chunky Monkey' will be streamed out
run lambda {|env| [200, {'Content-Type' => 'text/plain'}, ['Chunky Monkey']]}

Before the status and headers are sent in the response, they are frozen and cannot be further modified. Attempting to modify these fields will put the instance into an :errored state.

After the status and headers are sent, registered :after_open callbacks will be called. If no :after_open callbacks are defined, the instance will close the connection after flushing any queued chunks.

If any :after_open callbacks are defined, it's the callback's responsibility to call #close when the connection should be closed. This allows you to build firehose streaming APIs with full control of when to close connections.

use Rack::Stream

run lambda {|env|
  stream = env['rack.stream']
  stream.after_open do
    stream.chunk "Chunky"
    stream.chunk "Monkey"
    stream.close  # <-- It's your responsibility to close the connection
  end
  [200, {'Content-Type' => 'text/plain'}, ['Hello', 'World']]  # <-- downstream response bodies are also streamed
}

There are no :before_open callbacks. If you want something to be done before streaming is started, simply return it as part of your downstream response.

An instance enters the :closed state after the method #close is called on it. By default, any remainined queued content to be streamed will be flushed before the connection is closed.

use Rack::Stream

run lambda {|env|
  # to save typing, access the Rack::Stream instance with #instance_eval
  env['rack.stream'].instance_eval do
    before_close do
      chunk "Goodbye!"  # chunks can still be sent
    end

    after_close do
      # any additional cleanup. Calling #chunk here will result in an error.
    end
  end
  [200, {}, []]
}

An instance enters the :errored state if an illegal action is performed in one of the states. Legal actions for the different states are:

• new - #chunk, #status=, #headers=
• open - #chunk, #close

All other actions are considered illegal. Manipulating headers after :new is also illegal. The connection is closed immediately, and the error is written to env['rack.error']

When a connection is open and streaming content, you can define :before_chunk callbacks to manipulate the content before it's sent out.

use Rack::Stream

run lambda {|env|
  env['rack.stream'].instance_eval do
    after_open do
      chunk "chunky", "monkey"
    end

    before_chunk do |chunks|
      # return the manipulated chunks of data to be sent
      # this will stream MONKEYCHUNKY
      chunks.map(&:upcase).reverse
    end
  end
}

Rack::Stream allows you to write an API endpoint that automatically responds to different protocols based on the incoming request. This allows you to write a single rack endpoint that can respond to normal HTTP, WebSockets, or EventSource.

Assuming that rack-stream endpoint is running on port 3000. You can access it with the following:

# -i prints headers, -N immediately displays output instead of buffering
curl -i -N http://localhost:3000/

With Ruby:

require 'eventmachine'
require 'faye/websocket'

EM.run {
  socket = Faye::WebSocket::Client.new('ws://localhost:3000/')
  socket.onmessage = lambda {|e| puts e.data}  # puts each streamed chunk
  socket.onclose   = lambda {|e| EM.stop}
}

With Javascript:

var socket = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:3000/");
socket.onmessage = function(m) {console.log(m);}
socket.onclose   = function()  {console.log('socket closed');}

From Wikipedia:

Server-sent events is a technology for providing push notifications from a server to a browser client in the form of DOM events. The Server-Sent Events EventSource API is now being standardized as part of HTML5 by the W3C.

With Ruby:

require 'em-eventsource'

EM.run do
  source = EventMachine::EventSource.new("http://example.com/streaming")
  source.message do |m|
    puts m
  end
  source.start
end

With Javascript:

var source = new EventSource('/');
source.addEventListener('message', function(e) {
  console.log(e.data);
});

• 1.9.2
• 1.9.3

If a runtime is not listed above, it may still work. It just means I haven't tried it yet. The only app server I've tried running is Thin.

• more protocols / custom protocols http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Streaming
• integrate into grape
• add sinatra example that serves page that uses JS to connect
• deployment guide
• better integration with rails
• body: don't enqueue more chunks if state is succeeded?
• performance: GC, cleanup references, profile

• API Reference
• Stream Updates With Server-Sent Events
• thin_async was where I got started
• thin-async-test used to simulate thin in tests
• thin
• faye-websocket-ruby used for testing and handling different protocols
• rack-chunked