Using socket.io standalone without node.js

Question

(JavaScript newbie)

I am trying to build a JavaScript based client app that communicates with a server app over socket. I came across socket.io . Is it possible to use socket.io without any node.js dependencies?

I have cloned socket.io github and wrote a simple client html to connect to the server (Can post the code if required). But it does not connect to the server.

(Background info: We need a simple config client utility that runs on Win32 that communicates with a custom server that supports socket communication with a custom packet-format protocol. Instead of going through the usual MFC/.NET, we think HTML/JS/CSS makes a better solution. For this purpose, I have considered the following options:

1. Titanium: Works, but requires runtime to be installed
2. HTML5 WebSocket: Not widely supported - works on Chrome but requires IE10
3. socket.io: Trying to get it to work
4. Any other? (Can post this question as separate thread, if necessary) )

Answer 1

Establish a successful Socket.IO, your custom server must follow the spec , or use other server implementation of socket.io
https://github.com/learnboost/socket.io/wiki the In other languages part include some servers implementation of socket.io

Answer 2

There's a lot of noise in the answers to the original question. Let me try to answer the question as clear as I can.

Is it possible to use socket.io without any node.js dependencies?

The short answer is yes. You will however have Flash dependency. You can read about how to do this in socket.io's faq.

Answer 3

As I understand, you need a socket.io server without node.js, right? If to use socket.io just as cross-browser WebSockets would be sufficient, and what i mean by that is nicely illustrated in the following example from socket.io web site:

var socket = io.connect('http://localhost/');
socket.on('connect', function () {
  socket.send('hi');

  socket.on('message', function (msg) {
    // my msg
  });
});

It would make your server code very simple. Surely, you can find some WebSockets library for your language or even write your own. Look at this SO question for examples.

Or if you want to use socket.io protocol there is list of socket.io libraries for different languages, like python and java.