WebSocket: Define a communication protocol

[JeanJPNM]

The creation of #4 made me think about how the communication method used by this mod is going to become more complex as time goes on and more features are added. So I believe it may be necessary to use a communication protocol like json rpc to make the addition of new features more straightforward and backwards-compatible.

Of course, this is not required at the moment, but I think it may become relevant in the near future.

[JeanJPNM]

I can implement this change if you @Sharlottes and @cardillan agree.

[cardillan]

I think this is a very good idea. I wanted to propose adding support for sending schematics to Mlog Watcher via WebSockets (and retire SchematicRefresher along the way) one day, but I don't have it all thought out yet.

Do you think you could provide a sample client code for Javascript? I currently have a Java integration (in the command line compiler) and Javascript integration in an unreleased version of Mindcode. I can handle Java, but I don't do front-end and sometimes struggle with the web app.

[JeanJPNM]

Sure, here is how the javascript code might look like. It uses a few adhoc constructs like the JsonRpcConnection class, but the most convenient (and less error prone) way to do it would be using a library like json-rpc-2.0 in this case.

class JsonRpcConnection {
    constructor(socket) {
        // ids can be strings or numbers
        // this is just for demonstration purposes
        this.currentId = 0;
        // store callbacks for pending requests
        this.pending = new Map();
        this.socket = socket;
        // handle incoming messages
        socket.addEventListener("message", (event) => {
            const response = JSON.parse(event.data);
            if (response.id) {
                const resolve = this.pending.get(response.id);
                if (resolve) {
                    resolve(response);
                    this.pending.delete(response.id);
                }
            }
        });
    }
    send(method, params) {
        const id = this.currentId++;
        const message = JSON.stringify({
            jsonrpc: "2.0",
            id,
            method,
            params,
        });
        this.socket.send(message);
        return new Promise((resolve) => {
            // store the resolve function for later
            this.pending.set(id, resolve);
        });
    }
}
const socket = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:9992");
const conn = new JsonRpcConnection(socket);
// jsonrpc version of what we currently have
function sendSelectedProcessorUpdate(conn, code) {
    conn.send("updateSelectedProcessor", [code]);
}
// other possible methods we might want in the future
function sendProcessorUpdate(conn, position, code) {
    conn.send("updateProcessor", [position, code]);
}
// stub for demonstration purposes
async function sendListProcessorsRequest(conn) {
    const response = await conn.send("getProcessors", []);
    // TODO: handle errors
    if (response.error)
        return null;
    return response.result;
}

[Sharlottes]

So I believe it may be necessary to use a communication protocol like json rpc to make the addition of new features more straightforward and backwards-compatible.

I've checked the specs, and I don't think we need to use that library, because it requires some boilerplate code for generality. but although without that, we can just with “promising” and “validating” how JSON will be exchanged in our already implemented WS code. What's more, that library provides client and server classes, and since our client is in Mindustry mode with Java, we can't take full advantage of it.

Also, while it's reasonable to validate payloads with each other in anticipation of more complex features at this point, I think it's overkill to prepare for unplanned RPCs.

...so it looks like we only need to format the JSON to go into the message value of @JeanJPNM's JsonRpcConnection#send method, for example...

interface CustomPayload<T extends Record<string, unknown>> {
  id: string;
  data: T;
}

// in JsonRpcConnection#send method
this.socket.send(JSON.stringify({
  id,
  // because it dosen't have to rpc, 'type' name will be naturely
  type: 'CHECK_STATUS', // number could be lighter
  data: { }
}))

[JeanJPNM]

Agreed, I think it's good enough for this purpose, so now the only steps missing are:

• Document the how to connect with the mod (someone else might want to use this too)
• Document the valid request and response message types
• Actually implement it