How do I handle react-native-meteor DDP connection failure? - meteor

In this example you connect to Meteor with code like this
Meteor.connect('ws://192.168.X.X:3000/websocket');//do this only once
This is an asynchronous method and, as result, it returns nothing and it also doesn't accept a callback and Meteor.status() right after it will return connected == false. So the only solution I can see is to wrap this check into setTimeout callback with timeout set to, say 5s. Then, in case Meteor.status().connected is still false to show an error in UI. Is there a better solution?

On react-native-meteor you have access to DDP protocol so you can check for DDP status like this:
Meteor.ddp.on('connected', () => {
console.info('Conection con server stablished.');
});
And
Meteor.ddp.on('disconnected', () => {
console.info('Disconnected from server.');
});
You can also listen for all DDP events exposed here https://github.com/mondora/ddp.js/#public-events

Related

How do I call a client side function from the server using meteor?

Ok so I'm currently doing this and it works, but it seems a bit hacky. Is there a better way to call a function on the client side after a certain amount of time on the server side passes? On the client:
Meteor.subscribe('notifications');
Notifications.find().observe({ //Call whatever function.
added: function(item){
console.log(item);
alert(item.text)
}
});
And this on the server.
Meteor.publish('notifications', function(){
return Notifications.find({createdBy:this.userId});
});
//These run after a certain interval of time passes:
Notifications.insert({text: text, createdBy:createdBy});
Notifications.remove({text: text, createdBy:createdBy});
Make a collection on the server side for sending notifications to the client

DDP call interception

I'm thinking of scenarios where I might want to perform cross-cutting/AOP or other functions at the server for my Meteor Js project when a Meteor client (or DDP client) invokes a server-side method over a DDP connection.
This link here gives a really nice example of how to perform AOP on objects, but I wanted to know if there was a way to listen for inbound client requests over the DDP connection much like express-interceptor or action filters for asp.net web api but, of course, for websocket/ddp rpc implementations.
The Meteor Js Api describes only one event "onConnection" at the server. And this SO response mentions a connection._send on the client to perform certain AOP functions...but didn't find a whole lot of official documentation beyond that.
I basically want to know if there is a way to listen at the server for all DDP method calls from all client sessions to the server as described in the DDP spec here
Thanks.
We'll there are a lot of undocumented things in Meteor you'll find. I don't really see it as a problem. Here are some ways to intercept WebSocket traffic in Meteor:
Server
Here's some stuff you can do from the server:
Server -> Client
It's a bit tedious to intercept messages from the server to the client, but this works. You'd probably want to write some code to pin logs to clients.
(function () {
var timeout = 3000
var streamServer = Meteor.server.stream_server
var standardConnect = streamServer.server._events.connection
streamServer.server._events.connection = function (socket) {
var write = socket.write
socket.write = function () {
console.log(arguments)
write.apply(this, args)
}
standardConnect.apply(this, arguments)
}
})()
Client -> Server
To intercept calls from the client on the server you can do this:
Meteor.server.stream_server.server.addListener('connection', function (socket) {
var old = socket._events.data
socket._events.data = function () {
console.log(arguments)
old.apply(this, arguments)
}
})
The above sipped can't be used with the first one. It's not hard to fix dough. If you use this snipped, Meteor.server.stream_server.server._events.connection will simply be an array of functions instead of a function.
Client
Server - > Client
To Listen to calls from server to the client on the client you can do this:
Meteor.connection._stream.on('message', console.log.bind(console))
You can also intercept them using something like this
(function () {
var cb = Meteor.connection._stream.eventCallbacks.message[0]
Meteor.connection._stream.eventCallbacks.message[0] = function () {
console.log(arguments)
cb.apply(this, arguments)
}
})()
Not entirely sure how solid that one is. But it works, so what the heck.
To test it out you can simply do
Meteor.subscribe('test')
Client -> Server
As you pointed out, you can also do similar things with outgoing messages from the client.
Meteor.connection._send = function () {
console.log(arguments)
this.__proto__._send.apply(this, arguments)
}

Using tinytest to test Meteor client while the server is running

Is it possible to test the Meteor client while the server is running using tinytest? Here's my example testing the client only:
Tinytest.add("Add object to a collection", function(test) {
var people = new Meteor.Collection("people");
people.insert({"name": "Andrew"}, function(error, id) {
test.isNull(error);
});
});
For a fraction of a second this passes, but then it goes into the state of "waiting". I'm also positive that error is not null.
Meteor.Error {error: 404, reason: "Method not found", details: undefined}
I know this is happening because their is no server for the client to communicate with. When I try to run this test on the server and client, I continue to get the same issue with the client. Is there a way to test the client while the server is running?
Thanks, Andrew
Use new Meteor.Collection with no argument to create a stub collection that doesn't require the server. See the docs on Collections:
If you pass null as the name, then you're creating a local collection. It's not synchronized anywhere; it's just a local scratchpad that supports Mongo-style find, insert, update, and remove operations.
This is an async test, so you'll have to use addAsync.
Tinytest.addAsync("Add object to a collection", function(test, next) {
var people = new Meteor.Collection("people");
people.insert({"name": "Andrew"}, function(error, id) {
test.isNull(error);
next();
});
});
Note the next argument which signals that you are done in the callback.

Meteor.http.call gives not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin

When I try to call an external server for JSON queries in Meteor with the Meteor.http.call("GET") method I get the error message "not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin".
How do I allow my meteor app to make HTTP calls to other servers?
Right now I run it on localhost.
The code I run is this:
Meteor.http.call("GET",
"http://api.vasttrafik.se/bin/rest.exe/v1/location.name?authKey=XXXX&format=json&jsonpCallback=processJSON&input=kungsportsplatsen",
function(error, result) {
console.log("test");
}
);
There are other questions similar to this on StackOverflow.
You're restricted by the server you're trying to connect to when you do this from the client side (AJAX).
One way to solve it is if you have access to the external server, you can modify the header file to allow some, or all origins by:
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
However, if you place the call on the server side and not provide a callback function, the call will be made synchronously, thus not with AJAX, and it should succeed.
Here's
Meteor.methods({checkTwitter: function (userId) {
this.unblock();
var result = Meteor.http.call("GET", "http://api.twitter.com/xyz", {params: {user: userId}});
if (result.statusCode === 200) return true
return false;
}});

Meteor - Using collection on client startup

Why this code shows "0"? Shouldn't it return "1"?
Messages = new Meteor.Collection("messages");
if (Meteor.is_client) {
Meteor.startup(function () {
alert(Messages.find().count());
});
}
if (Meteor.is_server) {
Meteor.startup(function () {
Messages.insert({text: "server says hello"});
});
}
If I do the "Messages.find().count()" later, it returns 1.
By default, when a Meteor client starts up, it connects to the server and subscribes to documents in any Meteor.Collection you defined. That takes some time to complete, since there's always some amount of delay in establishing the server connection and receiving documents.
Meteor.startup() on the client is a lot like $() in jQuery -- it runs its argument once the client DOM is ready. It does not wait for your client's collections to receive all their documents from the server. So the way you wrote the code, the call to find() will always run too early and return 0.
If you want to wait to run code until after a collection is first downloaded from the server, you need to use Meteor.subscribe() to explicitly subscribe to a collection. subscribe() takes a callback that will run when the initial set of documents are on the client.
See:
meteor-publish
and meteor-subscribe
Just to follow up with a code example of how to know when a collection is ready to use on the client.
As #debergalis described, you should use the Meteor.subscribe approach - it accepts a couple of callbacks, notably onReady
For example:
if(Meteor.isClient){
Meteor.subscribe("myCollection", {
onReady: function(){
// do stuff with my collection
}
});
}

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