GRPC Bidirectional Streaming Example (chat)

This is a simple example of a bidirectional streaming RPC. It is a chat server that lets clients send messages to each other.

service ChatService {
   rpc chat(stream Message) returns (stream Message) {}
}

message Message {
   string from = 1;
   string message = 2;
}

Running the example

To start a new chat server, run:

node server.js

To connect a new client, run:

node client.js john_doe

To send a message from a client, type it into the terminal and press enter.

To disconnect a client, type exit and press enter.

You can run multiple clients at the same time. All clients will receive all messages sent by any client.

Configuration

You can change the port that the server listens and client tries to connect on by setting the CHAT_ADDR environment variable.

For example, to run the server on port 50051, run:

CHAT_ADDR=localhost:50051 node server.js