How to send websoecket message from the backend in rust?

Developers
1

I am using rust crate ic_websocket_cdk and I want to send message from my rust backend?

fn create_canister_ws_message_args(text: String, client_key: Vec<u8>) -> CanisterWsMessageArguments {
    let message = CanisterIncomingMessage::DirectlyFromClient(DirectClientMessage {
        message: text.into_bytes(),
        client_key,
    });

    CanisterWsMessageArguments {
        msg: message,
    }
}

// method to send a message to a specific client
#[update]
#[candid_method(update)]
fn send_message(text: String, client_key: Vec<u8>) -> CanisterWsMessageResult {
    let args = create_canister_ws_message_args(text, client_key);
    ic_websocket_cdk::ws_message(args)
}

is it possible ot make it like this?

1 Like
2

You can call the ic_websocket_cdk::ws_send function in any update call in your canister. You can also expose expose an update method to call the ws_send (e.g. from another canister using inter-canister calls). We did the same for the ic_websocket_cdk’s integration test canister. You can have a look at it here.

I think here you were just confusing the ws_message with the ws_send. The ws_message should just be used in the ws_message update method exposed by the canister.

3

So, Do U know what is the client_key? How to get it or generate it?

4

You get the client_key for the first time when the on_open callback is called. The on_open callback that you pass to the CDK must accept an argument of type OnOpenCallbackArgs, which is a struct that contains the client_key. In the ic_websocket_example you can see it:

So, in the on_open callback you can for example save the client_key in a map and read it from that map later when in your logic you need to call the ws_send.

5

For someone reason on_open doesn’t seams to be called at all.

6

That’s what for us seems to be a bug. Reinstalling the canister may solve the issue, as I mentioned here:

Have you tried it?

On the frontend client, are you getting any errors? Are you getting this sequence of log messages in the console?

[init] Generating new secret key
[onWsOpen] WebSocket opened, sending first service message
[onWsOpen] First service message sent
[onWsMessage] First service message received