https://github.com/tj/axon
message-oriented socket library for node.js heavily inspired by zeromq
https://github.com/tj/axon
Last synced: 8 months ago
JSON representation
message-oriented socket library for node.js heavily inspired by zeromq
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/tj/axon
- Owner: tj
- License: mit
- Created: 2012-07-12T06:38:44.000Z (over 13 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2018-10-11T04:10:47.000Z (over 7 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-04-30T19:07:39.962Z (9 months ago)
- Language: JavaScript
- Size: 642 KB
- Stars: 1,496
- Watchers: 63
- Forks: 155
- Open Issues: 38
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: Readme.md
- Changelog: History.md
- License: LICENSE
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# Axon
Axon is a message-oriented socket library for node.js heavily inspired by zeromq. For a light-weight
UDP alternative you may be interested in [punt](https://github.com/tj/punt).
[](https://travis-ci.org/tj/axon)
## Installation
$ npm install axon
## Features
- message oriented
- automated reconnection
- light-weight wire protocol
- mixed-type arguments (strings, objects, buffers, etc)
- unix domain socket support
- fast (~800 mb/s ~500,000 messages/s)
## Events
- `close` when server or connection is closed
- `error` (err) when an un-handled socket error occurs
- `ignored error` (err) when an axon-handled socket error occurs, but is ignored
- `socket error` (err) emitted regardless of handling, for logging purposes
- `reconnect attempt` when a reconnection attempt is made
- `connect` when connected to the peer, or a peer connection is accepted
- `disconnect` when an accepted peer disconnects
- `bind` when the server is bound
- `drop` (msg) when a message is dropped due to the HWM
- `flush` (msgs) queued when messages are flushed on connection
## Patterns
- push / pull
- pub / sub
- req / rep
- pub-emitter / sub-emitter
## Mixed argument types
Backed by [node-amp-message](https://github.com/tj/node-amp-message)
you may pass strings, objects, and buffers as arguments.
```js
push.send('image', { w: 100, h: 200 }, imageBuffer);
pull.on('message', function(type, size, img){});
```
## Push / Pull
`PushSocket`s distribute messages round-robin:
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('push');
sock.bind(3000);
console.log('push server started');
setInterval(function(){
sock.send('hello');
}, 150);
```
Receiver of `PushSocket` messages:
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('pull');
sock.connect(3000);
sock.on('message', function(msg){
console.log(msg.toString());
});
```
Both `PushSocket`s and `PullSocket`s may `.bind()` or `.connect()`. In the
following configuration the push socket is bound and pull "workers" connect
to it to receive work:
This configuration shows the inverse, where workers connect to a "sink"
to push results:
## Pub / Sub
`PubSocket`s send messages to all subscribers without queueing. This is an
important difference when compared to a `PushSocket`, where the delivery of
messages will be queued during disconnects and sent again upon the next connection.
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('pub');
sock.bind(3000);
console.log('pub server started');
setInterval(function(){
sock.send('hello');
}, 500);
```
`SubSocket` simply receives any messages from a `PubSocket`:
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('sub');
sock.connect(3000);
sock.on('message', function(msg){
console.log(msg.toString());
});
```
`SubSocket`s may optionally `.subscribe()` to one or more "topics" (the first multipart value),
using string patterns or regular expressions:
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('sub');
sock.connect(3000);
sock.subscribe('user:login');
sock.subscribe('upload:*:progress');
sock.on('message', function(topic, msg){
});
```
## Req / Rep
`ReqSocket` is similar to a `PushSocket` in that it round-robins messages
to connected `RepSocket`s, however it differs in that this communication is
bi-directional, every `req.send()` _must_ provide a callback which is invoked
when the `RepSocket` replies.
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('req');
sock.bind(3000);
sock.send(img, function(res){
});
```
`RepSocket`s receive a `reply` callback that is used to respond to the request,
you may have several of these nodes.
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('rep');
sock.connect(3000);
sock.on('message', function(img, reply){
// resize the image
reply(img);
});
```
Like other sockets you may provide multiple arguments or an array of arguments,
followed by the callbacks. For example here we provide a task name of "resize"
to facilitate multiple tasks over a single socket:
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('req');
sock.bind(3000);
sock.send('resize', img, function(res){
});
```
Respond to the "resize" task:
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('rep');
sock.connect(3000);
sock.on('message', function(task, img, reply){
switch (task) {
case 'resize':
// resize the image
reply(img);
break;
}
});
```
## PubEmitter / SubEmitter
`PubEmitter` and `SubEmitter` are higher-level `Pub` / `Sub` sockets, using the "json" codec to behave much like node's `EventEmitter`. When a `SubEmitter`'s `.on()` method is invoked, the event name is `.subscribe()`d for you. Each wildcard (`*`) or regexp capture group is passed to the callback along with regular message arguments.
app.js:
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('pub-emitter');
sock.connect(3000);
setInterval(function(){
sock.emit('login', { name: 'tobi' });
}, 500);
```
logger.js:
```js
var axon = require('axon');
var sock = axon.socket('sub-emitter');
sock.bind(3000);
sock.on('user:login', function(user){
console.log('%s signed in', user.name);
});
sock.on('user:*', function(action, user){
console.log('%s %s', user.name, action);
});
sock.on('*', function(event){
console.log(arguments);
});
```
## Socket Options
Every socket has associated options that can be configured via `get/set`.
- `identity` - the "name" of the socket that uniqued identifies it.
- `retry timeout` - connection retry timeout in milliseconds [100]
- `retry max timeout` - the cap for retry timeout length in milliseconds [5000]
- `hwm` - the high water mark threshold for queues [Infinity]
## Binding / Connecting
In addition to passing a portno, binding to INADDR_ANY by default, you
may also specify the hostname via `.bind(port, host)`, another alternative
is to specify the url much like zmq via `tcp://:`, thus
the following are equivalent:
```
sock.bind(3000)
sock.bind(3000, '0.0.0.0')
sock.bind('tcp://0.0.0.0:3000')
sock.connect(3000)
sock.connect(3000, '0.0.0.0')
sock.connect('tcp://0.0.0.0:3000')
```
You may also use unix domain sockets:
```
sock.bind('unix:///some/path')
sock.connect('unix:///some/path')
```
## Protocol
Axon 2.x uses the extremely simple [AMP](https://github.com/tj/node-amp) protocol to send messages on the wire. Codecs are no longer required as they were in Axon 1.x.
## Performance
Preliminary benchmarks on my Macbook Pro based on 10 messages
per tick as a realistic production application would likely have
even less than this. "better" numbers may be achieved with batching
and a larger messages/tick count however this is not realistic.
64 byte messages:
```
min: 47,169 ops/s
mean: 465,127 ops/s
median: 500,000 ops/s
total: 2,325,636 ops in 5s
through: 28.39 mb/s
```
1k messages:
```
min: 48,076 ops/s
mean: 120,253 ops/s
median: 121,951 ops/s
total: 601,386 ops in 5.001s
through: 117.43 mb/s
```
8k messages:
```
min: 36,496 ops/s
mean: 53,194 ops/s
median: 50,505 ops/s
total: 266,506 ops in 5.01s
through: 405.84 mb/s
````
32k messages:
```
min: 12,077 ops/s
mean: 14,792 ops/s
median: 16,233 ops/s
total: 74,186 ops in 5.015s
through: 462.28 mb/s
```
## What's it good for?
Axon are not meant to combat zeromq nor provide feature parity,
but provide a nice solution when you don't need the insane
nanosecond latency or language interoperability that zeromq provides
as axon do not rely on any third-party compiled libraries.
## Running tests
```
$ npm install
$ make test
```
## Authors
- [tj](http://github.com/tj)
- [gjohnson](https://github.com/gjohnson)
## Links
- [Screencast](https://vimeo.com/45818408)
- [Axon RPC](https://github.com/tj/axon-rpc)
## License
MIT