WebSocket RFC 6455 client library for iOS and OSX.
Jetfire is a conforming WebSocket (RFC 6455) client library in Objective-C for iOS and OSX.
Jetfire also has a Swift counter part here: Starscream
- Conforms to all of the base Autobahn test suite.
- Nonblocking. Everything happens in the background, thanks to GCD.
- Simple delegate pattern design.
- TLS/WSS support.
- Simple concise codebase at just a few hundred LOC.
First thing is to import the header file. See the Installation instructions on how to add Jetfire to your project.
#import "JFRWebSocket.h"Once imported, you can open a connection to your WebSocket server. Note that socket is probably best as a property, so your delegate can stick around.
self.socket = [[JFRWebSocket alloc] initWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"ws://localhost:8080"] protocols:@[@"chat",@"superchat"]];
self.socket.delegate = self;
[self.socket connect];After you are connected, there are some delegate methods that we need to implement.
-(void)websocketDidConnect:(JFRWebSocket*)socket {
NSLog(@"websocket is connected");
}-(void)websocketDidDisconnect:(JFRWebSocket*)socket error:(NSError*)error {
NSLog(@"websocket is disconnected: %@",[error localizedDescription]);
}-(void)websocket:(JFRWebSocket*)socket didReceiveMessage:(NSString*)string {
NSLog(@"got some text: %@",string);
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(),^{
//do some UI work
});
}-(void)websocket:(JFRWebSocket*)socket didReceiveData:(NSData*)data {
NSLog(@"got some binary data: %d",data.length);
}The delegate methods give you a simple way to handle data from the server, but how do you send data?
[self.socket writeData:[NSData data]]; // write some NSData over the socket!The writeString method is the same as writeData, but sends text/string.
[self.socket writeString:@"Hi Server!"]; //example on how to write text over the socket![self.socket disconnect];Returns if the socket is connected or not.
if(self.socket.isConnected) {
// do cool stuff.
}You can also override the default websocket headers with your own custom ones like so:
[self.socket setHeader:@"Sec-WebSocket-Protocol" forKey:@"someother protocols"];
[self.socket setHeader:@"Sec-WebSocket-Version" forKey:@"14"];
[self.socket setHeader:@"My-Awesome-Header" forKey:@"Everything is Awesome!"];If you need to specify a protocol, simple add it to the init:
//chat and superchat are the example protocols here
self.socket = [[JFRWebSocket alloc] initWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"ws://localhost:8080"] protocols:@[@"chat",@"superchat"]];
self.socket.delegate = self;
[self.socket connect];There are a couple of other properties that modify the stream:
//set this if you are planning on using the socket in a VOIP background setting (using the background VOIP service).
self.socket.voipEnabled = YES;
//set this you want to ignore SSL cert validation, so a self signed SSL certificate can be used.
self.socket.selfSignedSSL = YES;A custom queue can be specified when delegate methods are called. By default dispatch_get_main_queue is used, thus making all delegate methods calls run on the main thread. It is important to note that all WebSocket processing is done on a background thread, only the delegate method calls are changed when modifying the queue. The actual processing is always on a background thread and will not pause your app.
//create a custom queue
self.socket.queue = dispatch_queue_create("com.vluxe.jetfire.myapp", nil);Check out the SimpleTest project in the examples directory to see how to setup a simple connection to a WebSocket server.
The recommended approach for installing Jetfire is via the CocoaPods package manager (like most libraries).
Jetfire requires at least iOS 5/OSX 10.7 or above.
- Security.framework
- CFNetwork.framework
- Complete Docs
- Add Unit Tests
Jetfire is license under the Apache License.