socket.emit() vs. socket.send()

user_404020 0
Viewed 217028

What's the difference between these two?

I noticed that if I changed from socket.emit to socket.send in a working program, the server failed to receive the message, although I don't understand why.

I also noticed that in my program if I changed from socket.emit to socket.send, the server receives a message, but it seems to receive it multiple times. When I use console.log() to see what the server received, it shows something different from when I use socket.emit.

Why this behavior? How do you know when to use socket.emit or socket.send?

socket.io node.js sockets
6 Answers

TL;DR:

socket.send(data, callback) is essentially equivalent to calling socket.emit('message', JSON.stringify(data), callback)

Without looking at the source code, I would assume that the send function is more efficient edit: for sending string messages, at least?

So yeah basically emit allows you to send objects, which is very handy.

Take this example with socket.emit:

sendMessage: function(type, message) {
    socket.emit('message', {
        type: type,
        message: message
    });
}

and for those keeping score at home, here is what it looks like using socket.send:

sendMessage: function(type, message) {
    socket.send(JSON.stringify({
        type: type,
        message: message
    }));
}
user_15157670
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