websocket - RFC 6455 WebSocket client

Import with import "websocket.j" as websocket;. Open a WebSocket connection, send and receive text / binary messages, and close it - a full RFC 6455 client over net. connect performs the HTTP Upgrade handshake and verifies the server’s Sec-WebSocket-Accept (SHA-1 + base64 of the client key); send / sendBytes write masked frames (client-to-server frames must be masked); receive reads the next message, answering pings with pongs and reassembling fragmented messages. Needs the default jennifer binary. A protocol error or dropped connection throws Error{kind: "websocket"}.

import "websocket.j" as websocket;

def ws as websocket.Conn init websocket.connect("wss://ws.postman-echo.com/raw");
websocket.send($ws, "hello");
def m as websocket.Message init websocket.receive($ws);   # m.kind "text", m.text "hello"
websocket.close($ws);

Runnable: examples/modules/websocket_demo.j.

Connecting

ws:// is a plain TCP connection; wss:// is TLS (net.connectTLS). The port defaults to 80 / 443 and may be overridden in the URL (ws://host:9001/path).

def struct websocket.Conn { socket as net.Conn, timeoutMs as int };

The handshake sends a random 16-byte Sec-WebSocket-Key and rejects the connection (throws) unless the response is 101 and its Sec-WebSocket-Accept matches base64(SHA1(key + GUID)).

Sending and receiving

Outgoing frames are masked with a fresh key (as the spec requires) and length- encoded in the 7-bit, 16-bit, or 64-bit form automatically. receive returns a Message:

def struct websocket.Message {
    kind as string,   # "text", "binary", "close", or "pong"
    text as string,   # decoded text (for a "text" message; "" otherwise)
    data as bytes     # the raw payload bytes
};

receive transparently answers a ping with a pong and keeps reading, and reassembles a fragmented message (continuation frames) into one Message. A close frame surfaces as kind == "close" - stop reading and close the connection. Each receive is bounded by the connection’s timeoutMs; a timeout throws.

def m as websocket.Message init websocket.receive($ws);
if ($m.kind == "close") {
    websocket.close($ws);
} elseif ($m.kind == "text") {
    # handle $m.text
}

Scope

• Client only. A server-side upgrade would need an httpd connection-hijack hook (a separate, larger piece).
• Non-crypto masking key / nonce. The 4-byte mask and the handshake nonce come from math’s non-crypto RNG - neither is a security boundary (masking defeats proxy cache poisoning; the nonce only needs to rarely repeat), so this is correct, not a crypto gap.
• No permessage-deflate / extensions, no subprotocol negotiation. The Sec-WebSocket-Protocol / -Extensions headers are not sent.
• receive blocks per message up to timeoutMs; there is no non-blocking poll (drive one message at a time, or run receive in a spawn).

See also

• net.md - the TCP / TLS transport this is built on.
• http.md - the HTTP/1.1 client (a different, request/response protocol over the same net).
• modules/index.md - the module catalog and import rules.