Minimizing data sent between client/server in javascript

Question

I am trying to code a multiplayer game demo in javascipt using no libraries. Everything is going pretty good, but in order to get better performance to move forward I am going to have to try minimize the data I sent over my websockets or I won't be able to do much. I have been thinking about the best way to do this. I am using Node.JS + Express + Socket.IO.

At first I was sending the keyboard state of all the keys from each client to the server and quickly narrowed this down to true/false values for only the keys I was using. But now I am thinking that I should really be doing something like assigning decimal literal values (0, 1, 3, 4) to each possible input state that are allowed (possible combinations of inputs) and simply sending that value to the server.

I have more experience in statically typed languages such as C++, Java, etc. so I know how I would do this in those languages. But basically want I want to know is if I have a small number of possible input states. What is the best way to send this data using javascript on both ends. It will be going into a JSON object. Is there anyway for me to send a single byte?

Answer 1

https://gist.github.com/1437195 No idea if this works but that could the most optimized solution. I've never played with byteArray. I have no clue if they play well with socket.io.