RealtimeClient

Client for connecting to realtime. It's mostly a wrapper around phoenix_client.

Installation

If available in Hex, the package can be installed by adding realtime_client to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:realtime_client, "~> 0.1.0"}
  ]
end

Getting Started

First you have to create a client Socket:

options = [
  url: "ws://realtime-server:4000/socket/websocket",
]
{:ok, socket} = RealtimeClient.socket(options)

Once you have a connected socket, you can subscribe to topics:

{:ok, channel} = RealtimeClient.subscribe(socket, "realtime:*")

You can also subscribe to a specific channel (row level changes):

{:ok, channel} = RealtimeClient.subscribe(socket, "realtime:public:users:id=eq.42")

Consuming events is done with handle_info callbacks:

alias PhoenixClient.Message

# handle `INSERT` events
def handle_info(%Message{event: "INSERT", payload: %{"record" => record}} = msg, state) do
    # do something with record
    {:noreply, state}
end

# handle `DELETE` events
def handle_info(%Message{event: "DELETE", payload: %{"record" => record}} = msg, state) do
    IO.inspect(record, label: "DELETE")
    {:noreply, state}
end

# match all cases not handled above
def handle_info(%Message{} = msg, state) do
    {:noreply, state}
end

Configuration

config :realtime_client,
  endpoint: "ws://localhost:4000/socket/websocket"
  apikey: "some-JWT" # when using secure channels

Using a single Socket

If you don't need to create multiple client Sockets (e.g. one per user session) but only need one for your application, you can also start one as part of your supervision tree:

  # application.ex
  ...

  def start(_type, _args) do
    children = [
      RealtimeAppWeb.Telemetry,
      {Phoenix.PubSub, name: RealtimeApp.PubSub},
      RealtimeAppWeb.Endpoint,

      # Add RealtimeClient to start the client Socket
      RealtimeClient,
      {RealtimeApp.Worker, "realtime:*"} # Example worker, see below
    ]

    opts = [strategy: :one_for_one, name: RealtimeApp.Supervisor]
    Supervisor.start_link(children, opts)
  end

Example Worker

defmodule RealtimeApp.Worker do
  use GenServer

  alias PhoenixClient.Message

  def init(topic) do
    subscribe(topic)
    {:ok, %{}}
  end

  def start_link(topic) do
    GenServer.start_link(__MODULE__, topic)
  end

  def subscribe(topic) do
    send(self(), {:subscribe, topic})
  end

  def handle_info({:subscribe, topic}, state) do
    case RealtimeClient.subscribe(topic) do
      {:error, _error} ->
        Process.send_after(self(), {:subscribe, topic}, 300)
        {:noreply, state}

      {:ok, channel} ->
        {:noreply, Map.put(state, :channel, channel)}
    end
  end

  def handle_info(%Message{event: "INSERT", payload: %{"record" => record}}, state) do
    IO.inspect(record, label: "record")
    {:noreply, state}
  end
end

Running Tests

There's a docker compose setup in ./docker that can be used for development and testing.

make start && sleep 5
make test

treebee / realtime-client-elixir