ExpressJS/Node/Socket.io Broadcast Message on every request

Question

I have a nodejs application in which I want to monitor every incoming request live on a webpage. I am trying to do this using socket.io. I have the following in my app.js file

var express = require('express');
var http = require('http');
var app = express();
var server = require('http').Server(app);
var io = require('socket.io')(server);
server.listen(3000);

var usageLogger = function(req, res, next) {
    console.log("GOT REQUEST !");
    var os = require("os"),
    cpus = os.cpus();

    var url = "URL: " + req.url + "\n" ;
    var urlTime = "Time: " + new Date().getTime() + "\n" ;

    var liveMessage = "<div><p><b>URL:</b> "+ req.url + "</p><p><b>Time: </b> " + new Date().getTime() + "</p></div>"

    io.on('connection', function(socket){
      socket.emit('news', liveMessage);
    });
}

app.use(usageLogger);

In my footer.jade file , I have the following:

.container
    .footer
        hr(style='margin: 30px 0 10px 0;')
        p © 
            a(href='#') Author
            |  2014

script(src='/javascripts/bootstrap.min.js')
script(src="/socket.io/socket.io.js")
script(type='text/javascript')
  |var socket = io();
  |socket.on('news', function(msg){
  |$('#messages').append(msg);
  |});


block footer

When I access any page, i only get the broadcast message, when i refresh the index page of the site. So for example, when I first access localhost:300, i can see the following:

URL: / time: 0909234234

However, if I open a new tab and access localhost:3000/example, i have to refresh the first page to get the following view

URL: / time: 0909234234

URL: /example time: 0909234239

I am struggling to see why this does not automatically update without having to refresh the page. Any help me greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

in your code, for each coming request, when a socket connects, you emit news to that socket. what you want is, when a request comes in, emit news to all connected sockets. you can do it in this way :

var usageLogger = function(req, res, next) {
   //do what you want
   ...
   io.sockets.emit('news', liveMessage);
}