stompit2

stompit2 is a STOMP client library for Node.js and front-end apps. The most notable feature is the asynchronous pull API for receiving messages. The application controls when it receives the next message and the library returns a Promise for the operation. Similarly payload I/O is driven by the application. Asynchronous iterators of UInt8Array are used to transfer chunks of a frame's payload in both reading and writing operations. The library avoids using the EventEmitter interface.

TypeScript definitions are included in the library package.

Install

There is a separate package for each supported runtime environment.

To use the library in a Node.js app install package:

npm install stompit2-node

Requires Node version >=14.17.0. The package is compiled from Typescript and targeted for Node 14. The library does support earlier versions of Node but I choose not to distribute multiple optimised packages.

To use the library in a web browser install package:

npm install stompit2-web

Compiled to ES6 code and as ES6 modules.

Usage

Client Session Life Cycle

1. Create a transport connection: call netConnect, tlsConnect or wsConnect
2. Establish a STOMP session with the server: call stompConnect
3. Send and receive messages
4. Close session: session.disconnect()

Functions:

• netConnect
• tlsConnect
• wsConnect
• stompConnect
• disconnect

Sending Messages

1. Construct the frame headers: use FrameHeaders.fromEntries or FrameHeaders.fromMap
2. Construct a frame body generator: e.g. using a helper function writeString, writeJson or writeBuffer etc
3. Construct a frame object, referencing the headers and the body: e.g. {command: 'SEND', headers, body}
4. Send the message: session.send(frame)

Functions:

• FrameHeaders.fromEntries
• FrameHeaders.fromMap
• writeString
• writeJson
• writeBuffer
• send

Receiving Messages

1. Open a subscription: session.subscribe('/queue/test', 'client-individual')
2. Receive a message: session.receive(subscription)
3. Read the message content: e.g. readString(message.body) (or use helper function readJson)
4. Once the message is processed send an acknowledgment: session.ack(message.headers.get('message-id'))
5. Goto step 2 or close the subscription (by calling unsubscribe or closing the session)

Functions:

• subscribe
• receive
• cancelReceive
• readString
• readJson
• ack
• nack
• unsubscribe
• messageQueue

Reading the message content from the frame payload must not be deferred if it's to let subsequent frames be received first, as doing so blocks the session and starves other subscriptions. However fully read messages can be deferred and pushed into a local queue for later processing.

Calling the subscribe method is optional. If your subscribe request requires non-standard headers then you can construct and send your own SUBSCRIBE frame and then be ready to receive messages. To use the receive method, you need to construct a subscription object using the same details in your SUBSCRIBE frame.

To receive from pre-established subscriptions, like for example if you're using Rabbitmq's temp queue destinations, then you don't need to send a subscribe request, instead construct a subscription object with the expected properties and call receive. Side note: the library provides a convenient helper function request in the rabbitmq module to handle the request-response pattern.

A receive operation can be cancelled directly (i.e. session.cancelReceive(subscription)) or indirectly by a successful disconnect.

Error Handling

The library doesn't use exceptions where possible and instead most functions return a Result object to pass a return value or error. To make the library more convenient to use in applications that use exception handling, the result function is provided to unwrap the return value or throw an exception if the result status is not RESULT_OK.

A client session object doesn't emit events. If any error occurs then the error value is returned from the affected operations.

Transport Limit Defaults

It's a good idea for your application to impose size and time limits on I/O operations, although if you wish, all the limit parameters used by the transport can be effectively disabled. The transport module exports a limitDefaults object and is the default value for the limits parameter of the StandardTransport constructor.

STOMP heart-beating is configured with the desiredReadRate and desiredWriteRate properties.

• limitDefaults.operationTimeout: 3000
• limitDefaults.desiredReadRate: 3000
• limitDefaults.desiredWriteRate: 0
• limitDefaults.delayTolerance: 3000
• limitDefaults.readLimits.maxHeaderLines: 128
• limitDefaults.readLimits.maxLineLength: 8000
• limitDefaults.readLimits.maxBodyLength: Infinity
• limitDefaults.readLimits.maxBodyChunkLength: 16384
• limitDefaults.writeLimits.bufferSize: 16384