How to integrate nodeJS + Socket.IO and PHP?

So, to begin with, I put my project on github, if you want access to the full code: https://github.com/jdutheil/nodePHP

It is a very simple example project: a web chat. You just have an author and message, and when you press send it is saved in a mysql database. The idea is to send real time updates, and have a real conversation. ;) We'll use nodeJS for that.

I won't talk about PHP code, it is really simple and not interesting here; what I want to show you is how to integrate your nodeJS code.

I use express and Socket.IO, so be sure to install those modules with npm. Then, we create a simple nodeJS server:

var socket = require( 'socket.io' );
var express = require( 'express' );
var http = require( 'http' );

var app = express();
var server = http.createServer( app );

var io = socket.listen( server );

io.sockets.on( 'connection', function( client ) {
    console.log( "New client !" );

    client.on( 'message', function( data ) {
        console.log( 'Message received ' + data.name + ":" + data.message );

        io.sockets.emit( 'message', { name: data.name, message: data.message } );
    });
});

server.listen( 8080 );

We registered our events callback when a new user is connected ; every time we receive a message (represents a chat message), we broadcast it to every users connected. Now, the tricky part: client-side! That the part that took me most of the time, because I didn't know which script include to be able to run Socket.IO code without the nodeServer (because client page will be served by Apache).

But everything is already done; when you install Socket.IO module with npm, a script is available in /node_modules/socket.io/node_modules/socket.io-client/dist/socket.io.js; that the script we will include in our PHP page, in my case:

    <script src="js/node_modules/socket.io/node_modules/socket.io-client/dist/socket.io.js"></script>
    <script src="js/nodeClient.js"></script>

And to finish, my nodeClient.js, where we simply connect to the node server and wait for event to update our page. ;)

var socket = io.connect( 'http://localhost:8080' );

$( "#messageForm" ).submit( function() {
    var nameVal = $( "#nameInput" ).val();
    var msg = $( "#messageInput" ).val();

    socket.emit( 'message', { name: nameVal, message: msg } );

    // Ajax call for saving datas
    $.ajax({
        url: "./ajax/insertNewMessage.php",
        type: "POST",
        data: { name: nameVal, message: msg },
        success: function(data) {

        }
    });

    return false;
});

socket.on( 'message', function( data ) {
    var actualContent = $( "#messages" ).html();
    var newMsgContent = '<li> <strong>' + data.name + '</strong> : ' + data.message + '</li>';
    var content = newMsgContent + actualContent;

    $( "#messages" ).html( content );
});

I'll try to update and improve my code as soon as possible, but I think it already open to all of cool things! I am really open for advice and reviews on this stuff, is it the good way to do it, .. ?

Hope this can help some people!

I have another solution that works quite well for me, but I would like someone to comment about how effective it is, as I have not (yet) had the opportunity/time to test it on the real server.

Here goes the node-js code. I put this code in a file called nodeserver.js:

var http = require('http');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});

    var knall = new Object();
    knall.totten = "4 tomtar";
    knall.theArr = new Array();
    knall.theArr.push("hoppla")
    knall.theArr.push("hej")
    var strKnall = JSON.stringify(knall);

    res.end(strKnall);
}).listen(process.env.PORT);  

And here is the simple piece of code in php, calling the node-js server with the help of file_get_contents():

$json = file_get_contents('http://localhost:3002/knall.json');
$obj = json_decode($json);

Works great, when I load the php-page, it in turn calls the nodeserver.js page, which jsonify the knall-object.

I have two localhost-installations running on iis on windows 10, one standard php-server, and the nodejs-server works with the neat iisnode package.

The 'real' server is run on ubuntu.

I think this is a neat and easy solution for communication between two servers, but maybe someone has any comments about it?