gRPChat

A simple gRPC based CLI chat, using bidirectional streams - written in Go

Includes both server and client implementations. The server supports multiple connections and broadcasts messages to all connected users.

Setup

To build the executable binaries, on Linux, you can use the provided Makefile commands:

• position yourself in the project's root folder
• run make build_client to build the client's executable binary
• run make build_server to build the server's executable binary

Binaries will be put in the /client/bin/ and /server/bin/ folders.

Running the server

The server's executable can be run without providing any flag. This results in the server listening on port 8080

You can set the following flags when launching the server:

Flag	Type	Default	Meaning
p	string	8080	TCP port on which the server will listen

Running the client

In order to run the client you must provide a username with the -name flag. By default, the client will try to connect to a gRPC server on localhost:8080. You can change the server's URL using the -url flag.

Flag	Type	Default	Meaning
url	string	localhost:8080	URL of the gRPC server
name	string	/	username to be displayed

Once the client is running, press the Enter key to send what's written in your terminal as message to the server.

To quit, send the message quit or press CTRL + C