HTTP 2 support

[designfrontier]

Would be nice if Express had http 2 support on the roadmap, now that all major browsers support it in their current versions. So I am tossing it in here.

[jamlfy]

SPDY ??

[designfrontier]

Yes

[Floby]

I was under the impression that you can already do that with

http2.createServer(app)

and

spdy.createServer(app)

[Twipped]

@Floby you mean with the spdy and http2 packages, yes? There's been no addition to node itself to support those.

I imagine that's why it's not officially on express' roadmap.

[Floby]

Well I would guess that spdy is definitely off the roadmap, spdy being an experimental protocol.

http2 is most probably getting standardized one day. I the meantime, it is (almost) easily implemented in userland with the http2 module which uses a signature similar to the core http/https modules

server push is a method of the http2 response object and I would assume express passes it on transparently.

[dougwilson]

Express has nothing to do with the underlying HTTP protocol version. It already supports HTTP2. Here is an example with the http2 package:

var express = require('express')
var app = express()

app.get('/', function (req, res) {
  res.send('hello, http2!')
})

var options = {
  key: fs.readFileSync('./example/localhost.key'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('./example/localhost.crt')
};

require('http2').createServer(options, app).listen(8080);

[jamlfy]

Open this issue - https://gigaom.com/2015/02/09/google-ditches-its-own-protocol-for-http2-and-a-faster-web/

[dougwilson]

@alejonext I'm not sure I understand your comment--Express has supported HTTP2/SPDY for a long time.

[jamlfy]

Ha! ok @dougwilson

[techsin]

Upon reading http2 docs im under impression that you need to write code for server push both on client side and server... is this true? And isnt server push the greatest benefit, to be able send alresources required together and avoid separate requests.

[dougwilson]

This is absolutely true, though I think you can use a module like https://github.com/jshttp/spdy-push ? I'm not that familiar, but Express does not have any knowledge of the underlying protocol version (or even the socket), since at it's core, all Express is is a function you pass as the handler to .createServer.

You can always extend your Express like

var express = require('express')
var app = express()

express.response.push = /* define some method that will become res.push() in your app */

[designfrontier]

I agree with what @dougwilson says above and where this conversation ended up. http2/spdy should be implemented at a lower level then express and be pretty much transparent to express itself.

@techsin

[jinjor]

Does this code still work?

var express = require('express')
var app = express()

app.get('/', function (req, res) {
  res.send('hello, http2!')
})

var options = {
  key: fs.readFileSync('./example/localhost.key'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('./example/localhost.crt')
};

require('http2').createServer(options, app).listen(8080);

I tried the same thing with newest versions and got an error.
Which library's issue is this?

_stream_readable.js:505
    dest.end();
         ^
TypeError: undefined is not a function
    at Stream.onend (_stream_readable.js:505:10)
    at Stream.g (events.js:199:16)
    at Stream.emit (events.js:129:20)
    at _stream_readable.js:908:16
    at process._tickCallback (node.js:355:11)

Node: v0.12.0
node-http2: v3.2.0
express: v4.11.2

[dougwilson]

File an issue at https://github.com/molnarg/node-http2

[dougwilson]

For people still dropping by here, use https://github.com/indutny/node-spdy instead of https://github.com/molnarg/node-http2

The spdy module does in fact support full HTTP/2 despite it's name and works out-of-the-box with Express.js