Maintaining WebSocket Connections

Sending and receiving data

When we open the DevTools, we may notice a “Messages” tab. This tab shows all messages that are sent to or received from the server. The DevTools for our application looks like this:

We can ignore the error message for now; the important thing to note is that a WebSocket can send messages (green background) and receive messages (white background). This two-way data transmission can happen in both directions simultaneously.

Full-duplex connection

A connection that is capable of two-way data transmission is called a full-duplex connection.

WebSockets transmit data through a data framing protocol. We can’t see it with the DevTools, but it’s worth knowing this provides security benefits and allows WebSocket connections to work correctly through different networking layers. These traits will enable us to ship WebSocket-powered applications into production more confidently.

WebSocket extensions

The WebSocket protocol contains extensions that provide additional functionality. Extensions are ...