NodeJS，websocket和module.export

Question

I have a server.js file.

Inside, i defined my routes.

// routes
var mainRoutes   = require('./routes/main.js')(app, express);
var apiRoutes    = require('./routes/api.js')(app, express);
var socketRoutes = require('./routes/socket.js');

app.use('/', mainRoutes);
app.use('/api', apiRoutes);

// socket.io communication
io.sockets.on('connection', socketRoutes);

My socket.js file looks like that :

module.exports = function (socket) {

    console.log('user connected');

    socket.on('myEvent', function(data) {
        // whatever ...
    });
}

Inside this function, i can catch events and send some. BUT i need to send a message to everyone at some point. Let say when i receive an 'myEvent' event.

So basically, i would like to do :

io.sockets.emit('messageForEveryone', "This is a test");

But here, i can only work on the 'socket' argument, which is for 1 person only i guess.

I would like to pass io from server.js, to socket.js.

I tried that (in server.js) :

var socketRoutes = require('./routes/socket.js', io);

And that (in socket.js) :

module.exports = function (io, socket)

Obviously, it's not working. I don't even understand where the socket argument is coming from.

Question : How can i work on io object, when i'm inside the module.export of the sockets.js file ?

I would really appreciate any help, i'm new to all of this.

Thanks !

Answer 1

Since you just want to emit to all clients, instead of passing io to socketRoutes , you can simply do this.

module.exports = function (socket) {
    var sockets = this;
    console.log('user connected');

    socket.on('myEvent', function(data) {
        sockets.emit('hello_all_clients',data);
    });
}

Answer 2

You could return a function from exports as such.

module.exports = function (io) { // pass io to initialize
      return function (socket) {
         // io and socket are both scoped
       }
}

then in server.js

// socket.io communication
io.sockets.on('connection', socketRoutes(io));