In server.js, there are two variables that keep track of channel users: 'tokenChannels' and 'channels'. I can't seem to find out what the appropriate use cases are for each of them. As far as I can tell, they seemingly serve the same purpose, namely grouping users into channels. The difference is that 'channels' uses a channel name to identify channels, while 'tokenChannels' uses a generated token. Could you please explain why there are two ways to do seemingly the same thing, and when each of those are appropriate to use?

Thank you.

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Gergely Lekli created an issue.

dabbor’s picture

dabbor CreditAttribution: dabbor commented

I would really appreciate some info on this topic as well.

There is no documentation explaining channels and tokenChannels and I'm starting to realize that there is quite a big difference between those two.

There is a function:

ClientManager.prototype.setupClientConnection = function (sessionId, authData, contentTokens) {

located in the file client-manager.js of Node.js application "drupal-node.js"

That function contains this code:

// ...
var clientToken = '';
  for (var tokenChannel in contentTokens) {
    // @TODO: Need to check contentTokens.hasOwnProperty()?
    this.tokenChannels[tokenChannel] = this.tokenChannels[tokenChannel] || {'tokens': {}, 'sockets': {}};

    clientToken = contentTokens[tokenChannel];
    if (this.tokenChannels[tokenChannel].tokens[clientToken]) {
      this.tokenChannels[tokenChannel].sockets[sessionId] = this.tokenChannels[tokenChannel].tokens[clientToken];

      this.logger.debug("setupClientConnection: Added token " + clientToken + " for channel " + tokenChannel + " for socket " + sessionId);

      delete this.tokenChannels[tokenChannel].tokens[clientToken];
    }
  }
// ...

And I'm mostly concerned about the line:

delete this.tokenChannels[tokenChannel].tokens[clientToken];

So it seems like the token channel is limited just for one client and probably just for one-time usage.

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) CreditAttribution: Anonymous commented

http://theoleschool.com/blog/using-drupal-content-channel-tokens-nodejs/

'You can think of content token channels as a per page (or piece of content) channel subscription. This differs from the user channels in that it targets users who are currently viewing a specific page rather than users targeted by some property of the user object (regardless of where they are on the site).'