Simple Way to Implement Server Sent Events in Node.js?

If you're using express this is the easiest way https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-sse

on BE:

const SSE = require('express-sse');

const sse = new SSE();

...

app.get('/sse', sse.init);

...

sse.send('message', 'event-name');

on FE:

const EventSource = require('eventsource');

const es = new EventSource('http://localhost:3000/sse');

es.addEventListener('event-name', function (message) {
  console.log('message:', message)
});

Here is an express server that sends one Server-Sent Event (SSE) per second, counting down from 10 to 0:

const express = require('express')

const app = express()
app.use(express.static('public'))

app.get('/countdown', function(req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200, {
    'Content-Type': 'text/event-stream',
    'Cache-Control': 'no-cache',
    'Connection': 'keep-alive'
  })
  countdown(res, 10)
})

function countdown(res, count) {
  res.write("data: " + count + "\n\n")
  if (count)
    setTimeout(() => countdown(res, count-1), 1000)
  else
    res.end()
}

app.listen(3000, () => console.log('SSE app listening on port 3000!'))

Put the above code into a file (index.js) and run it: node index

Next, put the following HTML into a file (public/index.html):

<html>
<head>
  <script>
  if (!!window.EventSource) {
    var source = new EventSource('/countdown')

    source.addEventListener('message', function(e) {
      document.getElementById('data').innerHTML = e.data
    }, false)

    source.addEventListener('open', function(e) {
      document.getElementById('state').innerHTML = "Connected"
    }, false)

    source.addEventListener('error', function(e) {
      const id_state = document.getElementById('state')
      if (e.eventPhase == EventSource.CLOSED)
        source.close()
      if (e.target.readyState == EventSource.CLOSED) {
        id_state.innerHTML = "Disconnected"
      }
      else if (e.target.readyState == EventSource.CONNECTING) {
        id_state.innerHTML = "Connecting..."
      }
    }, false)
  } else {
    console.log("Your browser doesn't support SSE")
  }
  </script>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>SSE: <span id="state"></span></h1>
  <h3>Data: <span id="data"></span></h3>
</body>
</html>

In your browser, open localhost:3000 and watch the SSE countdown.


I found SSE implementation in node.js.

Github link: https://github.com/einaros/sse.js

NPM module:https://www.npmjs.com/package/sse

Will above link helps you ?


I'm adding a simple implementation of SSE here. It's just one Node.js file.

You can have a look at the result here: https://glossy-ox.glitch.me/

const http = require('http');
const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  // Server-sent events endpoint
  if (req.url === '/events') {
    res.writeHead(200, {
      'Content-Type': 'text/event-stream',
      'Cache-Control': 'no-cache',
      ...(req.httpVersionMajor === 1 && { 'Connection': 'keep-alive' })
    });

    const refreshRate = 1000; // in milliseconds
    return setInterval(() => {
      const id = Date.now();
      const data = `Hello World ${id}`;
      const message =
        `retry: ${refreshRate}\nid:${id}\ndata: ${data}\n\n`;
      res.write(message);
    }, refreshRate);
  }

  // Client side
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
  res.end(`
    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html lang="en" dir="ltr">
      <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8">
        <title>SSE</title>
      </head>
      <body>
        <pre id="log"></pre>
      </body>
      <script>
        var eventSource = new EventSource('/events');
        eventSource.onmessage = function(event) {
          document.getElementById('log').innerHTML += event.data + '<br>';
        };
      </script>
    </html>
  `);
});

server.listen(port);

server.on('error', (err) => {
  console.log(err);
  process.exit(1);
});

server.on('listening', () => {
  console.log(`Listening on port ${port}`);
});