`.broadcast()`

Broadcast a message to all sockets in a room (or to a particular socket).

javascript

sails.sockets.broadcast(roomNames, data);

Or:

sails.sockets.broadcast(roomNames, eventName, data);
sails.sockets.broadcast(roomNames, data, socketToOmit);
sails.sockets.broadcast(roomNames, eventName, data, socketToOmit);

Usage

	Argument	Type	Details
1	roomNames	((string)), ((Array))	The name of one or more rooms in which to broadcast a message (see sails.sockets.join). To broadcast to individual sockets, use their IDs as room names.
2	eventName	((string?))	Optional. The unique name of the event used by the client to identify this message. Defaults to `'message'`.
3	data	((json))	The data to send in the message.
4	socketToOmit	((req?))	Optional. If provided, the socket belonging to the specified socket request will not receive the message. This is useful if you trigger the broadcast from a client, but don't want that client to receive the message itself (for example, sending a message to everybody else in a chat room).

Example

In an action, service, or arbitrary script on the server:

javascript

sails.sockets.broadcast('artsAndEntertainment', { greeting: 'Hola!' });

On the client:

javascript

io.socket.on('message', function (data){
  console.log(data.greeting);
});

Additional Examples

More examples of sails.sockets.brodcast() usage are available here, including broadcasting to multiple rooms, using a custom event name, and omitting the requesting socket.

Notes

sails.sockets.broadcast() is more or less equivalent to the functionality of .emit() and .broadcast() in Socket.IO.

Every socket is automatically subscribed to a room with its ID as the name, allowing direct messaging to a socket via sails.sockets.broadcast()

Be sure to check that req.isSocket === true before passing in req as socketToOmit. For the requesting socket to be omitted, the request (req) must be from a socket request, not just any old HTTP request.

data must be JSON-serializable; i.e. it's best to use plain dictionaries/arrays, and make sure your data does not contain any circular references. If you aren't sure, build your broadcast data manually, or call something like rttc.dehydrate(data,true,true) on it first.