How to use Akka-HTTP client websocket send message

Question

I'm trying client-side websocket by following doc at webSocketClientFlow.

sample code is:

import akka.actor.ActorSystem
import akka.Done
import akka.http.scaladsl.Http
import akka.stream.ActorMaterializer
import akka.stream.scaladsl._
import akka.http.scaladsl.model._
import akka.http.scaladsl.model.ws._

import scala.concurrent.Future

object WebSocketClientFlow {
  def main(args: Array[String]) = {
    implicit val system = ActorSystem()
    implicit val materializer = ActorMaterializer()
    import system.dispatcher

    // Future[Done] is the materialized value of Sink.foreach,
    // emitted when the stream completes
    val incoming: Sink[Message, Future[Done]] =
      Sink.foreach[Message] {
        case message: TextMessage.Strict =>
          println(message.text)
      }

    // send this as a message over the WebSocket
    val outgoing = Source.single(TextMessage("hello world!"))

    // flow to use (note: not re-usable!)
    val webSocketFlow = Http().webSocketClientFlow(WebSocketRequest("ws://echo.websocket.org"))

    // the materialized value is a tuple with
    // upgradeResponse is a Future[WebSocketUpgradeResponse] that
    // completes or fails when the connection succeeds or fails
    // and closed is a Future[Done] with the stream completion from the incoming sink
    val (upgradeResponse, closed) =
      outgoing
        .viaMat(webSocketFlow)(Keep.right) // keep the materialized Future[WebSocketUpgradeResponse]
        .toMat(incoming)(Keep.both) // also keep the Future[Done]
        .run()

    // just like a regular http request we can access response status which is available via upgrade.response.status
    // status code 101 (Switching Protocols) indicates that server support WebSockets
    val connected = upgradeResponse.flatMap { upgrade =>
      if (upgrade.response.status == StatusCodes.SwitchingProtocols) {
        Future.successful(Done)
      } else {
        throw new RuntimeException(s"Connection failed: ${upgrade.response.status}")
      }
    }

    // in a real application you would not side effect here
    connected.onComplete(println)
    closed.foreach(_ => println("closed"))
  }
}

after had connection upgraded, how to use the connection send message to websocket server side?

I noticed from the doc:

The Flow that is returned by this method can only be materialized once. For each request a new flow must be acquired by calling the method again.

still confused, why we need construct the flow many times since an upgraded connection alrady ready.

Answer 1

You can create an actor based source and send new messages over the established websocket connection.

    val req = WebSocketRequest(uri = "ws://127.0.0.1/ws")
    val webSocketFlow = Http().webSocketClientFlow(req)

    val messageSource: Source[Message, ActorRef] = 
         Source.actorRef[TextMessage.Strict](bufferSize = 10, OverflowStrategy.fail)

    val messageSink: Sink[Message, NotUsed] =
        Flow[Message]
            .map(message => println(s"Received text message: [$message]"))
            .to(Sink.ignore)

    val ((ws, upgradeResponse), closed) =
        messageSource
            .viaMat(webSocketFlow)(Keep.both)
            .toMat(messageSink)(Keep.both)
            .run()

    val connected = upgradeResponse.flatMap { upgrade =>
        if (upgrade.response.status == StatusCodes.SwitchingProtocols) {
            Future.successful(Done)
        } else {
            throw new RuntimeException(s"Connection failed: ${upgrade.response.status}")
        }
    }

    ws ! TextMessage.Strict("Hello World")
    ws ! TextMessage.Strict("Hi")
    ws ! TextMessage.Strict("Yay!")

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