NODE(1) ======= Ryan Dahl Version, 0.1.0, 2009.06.30 == NAME node - purely event-based I/O for V8 javascript == SYNOPSIS An example of a web server written with Node which responds with "Hello World" after waiting two seconds: ---------------------------------------- node.http.createServer(function (request, response) { setTimeout(function () { response.sendHeader(200, [["Content-Type", "text/plain"]]); response.sendBody("Hello World"); response.finish(); }, 2000); }).listen(8000); puts("Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8000/"); ---------------------------------------- To run the server, put the code into a file called +example.js+ and execute it with the node program ---------------------------------------- > node example.js Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8000/ ---------------------------------------- == DESCRIPTION Node provides an easy way to build scalable network programs. In the above example, the 2 second delay does not prevent the server from handling new requests. Node tells the operating system (through +epoll+, +kqueue+, +/dev/poll+, or +select+) that it should be notified when the 2 seconds are up or if a new connection is made--then it goes to sleep. If someone new connects, then it executes the callback, if the timeout expires, it executes the inner callback. Each connection is only a small heap allocation. This is in contrast to today's more common model where OS threads are employed for concurrency. Thread-based networking http://www.sics.se/~joe/apachevsyaws.html[is] http://www.kegel.com/c10k.html[relatively] http://bulk.fefe.de/scalable-networking.pdf[inefficient] and very difficult to use. Node will show much better memory efficiency under high-loads than systems which allocate 2mb thread stacks for each connection. Furthermore, users of Node are free from worries of dead-locking the process--there are no locks. In fact, no function in Node directly performs I/O. Because nothing blocks, less-than-expert programmers are able to develop fast systems. Node is similar in design to systems like Ruby's http://rubyeventmachine.com/[Event Machine] or Python's http://twistedmatrix.com/[Twisted]. Node takes the event model a bit further. For example, in other systems there is always a blocking call to start the event-loop. Typically one defines behavior through callbacks at the beginning of a script and at the end starts a server through a call like +EventMachine::run()+. In Node it works differently. By default Node enters the event loop after executing the input script. Node exits the event loop when there are no more callbacks to perform. Like in traditional browser javascript, the event loop is hidden from the user. Node's HTTP API has grown out of my difficulties developing and working with web servers. For example, streaming data through most web frameworks is impossible. Or the oft-made false assumption that all message headers have unique fields. Node attempts to correct these and other problems in its API. Coupled with Node's purely evented infrastructure, it will make a more comprehensive foundation for future web libraries/frameworks. _But what about multiple-processor concurrency? Threads are necessary to scale programs to multi-core computers._ The name _Node_ should give some hint at how it is envisioned being used. Processes are necessary to scale to multi-core computers, not memory-sharing threads. The fundamentals of scalable systems are fast networking and non-blocking design--the rest is message passing. In the future, I'd like Node to be able to spawn new processes (probably using the http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-workers/current-work/[Web Workers API]), but this is something that fits well into the current design. == API Node supports 3 byte-string encodings: ASCII (+"ascii"+), UTF-8 (+"utf8"+), and raw binary (+"raw"+). It uses strings to represent ASCII and UTF-8 encoded data. For the moment, arrays of integers are used to represent raw binary data--this representation is rather inefficient. This will change in the future, when http://code.google.com/p/v8/issues/detail?id=270[V8 supports Blob objects]. Unless otherwise noted, functions are all asynchronous and do not block execution. === Helpers +puts(string)+:: Alias for +stdout.puts()+. Outputs the +string+ and a trailing new-line to +stdout+. + Everything in node is asynchronous; +puts()+ is no exception. This might seem ridiculous but, if for example, one is piping +stdout+ into an NFS file, +printf()+ will block from network latency. There is an internal queue for +puts()+ output, so you can be assured that output will be displayed in the order it was called. +node.debug(string)+:: A synchronous output function. Will block the process and output the string immediately to stdout. +p(object)+ :: Print the JSON representation of +object+ to the standard output. +print(string)+:: Like +puts()+ but without the trailing new-line. +node.exit(code)+:: Immediately ends the process with the specified code. === Global Variables +ARGV+ :: An array containing the command line arguments. +stdout+, +stderr+, and +stdin+ :: Objects of type +node.fs.File+. (See below.) +__filename+ :: The filename of the script being executed. === Events Many objects in Node emit events: a TCP server emits an event each time there is a connection, a child process emits an event when it exits. All objects which emit events are are instances of +node.EventEmitter+. Events are represented by a snakecased string. Here are some examples: +"connection"+, +"receive"+, +"message_begin"+. Functions can be then be attached to objects, to be executed when an event is emitted. These functions are called _listeners_. Some asynchronous file operations return an +EventEmitter+ called a _promise_. A promise emits just a single event when the operation is complete. ==== +node.EventEmitter+ +emitter.addListener(event, listener)+ :: Adds a listener to the end of the listeners array for the specified event. + ---------------------------------------- server.addListener("connection", function (socket) { puts("someone connected!"); }); ---------------------------------------- +emitter.listeners(event)+ :: Returns an array of listeners for the specified event. This array can be manipulated, e.g. to remove listeners. +emitter.emit(event, args)+ :: Execute each of the listeners in order with the array +args+ as arguments. ==== +node.Promise+ +node.Promise+ inherits from +node.eventEmitter+. A promise emits one of two events: +"success"+ or +"error"+. After emitting its event, it will not emit anymore events. +promise.addCallback(listener)+ :: Adds a listener for the +"success"+ event. Returns the same promise object. +promise.addErrback(listener)+ :: Adds a listener for the +"error"+ event. Returns the same promise object. === Modules Node has a simple module loading system. In Node, files and modules are in one-to-one correspondence. As an example, +foo.js+ loads the module +circle.js+. The contents of +foo.js+: ---------------------------------------- var circle = require("circle.js"); function onLoad () { puts("The area of a cirlce of radius 4 is " + circle.area(4)); } ---------------------------------------- The contents of +circle.js+: ---------------------------------------- var PI = 3.14; exports.area = function (r) { return PI * r * r; }; exports.circumference = function (r) { return 2 * PI * r; }; ---------------------------------------- The module +circle.js+ has exported the functions +area()+ and +circumference()+. To export an object, add to the special +exports+ object. (Alternatively, one can use +this+ instead of +exports+.) Variables local to the module will be private. In this example the variable +PI+ is private to +circle.js+. The module path is relative to the file calling +require()+. That is, +circle.js+ must be in the same directory as +foo.js+ for +require()+ to find it. HTTP URLs can also be used to load modules. For example, ---------------------------------------- var circle = require("http://tinyclouds.org/node/circle.js"); ---------------------------------------- Like +require()+ the function +include()+ also loads a module. Instead of returning a namespace object, +include()+ will add the module's exports into the global namespace. For example: ---------------------------------------- include("circle.js"); function onLoad () { puts("The area of a cirlce of radius 4 is " + area(4)); } ---------------------------------------- ==== +onLoad()+ Because module loading does not happen instantaneously and because Node has a policy of never blocking, a callback +onLoad+ can be set that will notify the user when the included modules are loaded. Each file/module can have its own +onLoad+ callback. +include()+ and +require()+ cannot be used after +onLoad()+ is called. ==== +onExit()+ When the program exits a callback +onExit()+ will be called for each module (children first). The +onExit()+ callback cannot perform I/O since the process is going to forcably exit in less than microsecond. However, it is a good hook to perform constant time checks of the module's state. E.G. for unit tests: ---------------------------------------- include("asserts.js"); var timer_executed = false; setTimeout(function () { timer_executed = true }, 1000); function onExit () { assertTrue(timer_executed); } ---------------------------------------- Just to reiterate: +onExit()+, is not the place to close files or shutdown servers. The process will exit before they get performed. === Timers +setTimeout(callback, delay)+:: To schedule execution of callback after delay milliseconds. Returns a +timeoutId+ for possible use with +clearTimeout()+. +clearTimeout(timeoutId)+:: Prevents said timeout from triggering. +setInterval(callback, delay)+:: To schedule the repeated execution of callback everydelay milliseconds. Returns a +intervalId+ for possible use with +clearInterval()+. +clearInterval(intervalId)+:: Stops a interval from triggering. === Child Processes Node provides a tridirectional +popen(3)+ facility through the class +node.Process+. It is possible to stream data through the child's +stdin+, +stdout+, and +stderr+ in a fully non-blocking way. ==== +node.Process+ [cols="1,2,10",options="header"] |========================================================= |Event |Parameters |Notes |+"output"+ | +data+ | Each time the child process sends data to its +stdout+, this event is triggered. +data+ is a string. At the moment all data passed to +stdout+ is interrpreted as UTF-8 encoded. + If the child process closes its +stdout+ stream (a common thing to do on exit), this event will be emitted with +data === null+. |+"error"+ | +data+ | Identical to the +"output"+ event except for +stderr+ instead of +stdout+. |+"exit"+ | +code+ | This event is emitted after the child process ends. +code+ is the final exit code of the process. One can be assured that after this event is emitted that the +"output"+ and +"error"+ callbacks will no longer be made. |========================================================= +node.createProcess(command)+:: Launches a new process with the given +command+. For example: + ---------------------------------------- var ls = node.createProcess("ls -lh /usr"); ls.addListener("output", function (data) { puts(data); }); ---------------------------------------- +process.pid+ :: The PID of the child process. +process.write(data, encoding="ascii")+ :: Write data to the child process's +stdin+. The second argument is optional and specifies the encoding: possible values are +"utf8"+, +"ascii"+, and +"raw"+. +process.close()+ :: Closes the process's +stdin+ stream. +process.kill(signal=node.SIGTERM)+ :: Send a single to the child process. If no argument is given, the process will be sent +node.SIGTERM+. The standard POSIX signals are defined under the +node+ namespace (+node.SIGINT+, +node.SIGUSR1+, ...). === File I/O This part of the API is split into two parts: simple wrappers around standard POSIX file I/O functions and a user-friendly +File+ object. ==== POSIX Wrappers All POSIX wrappers have a similar form. They return a promise (+node.Promise+). Example: ---------------------------------------- var promise = node.fs.unlink("/tmp/hello"); promise.addCallback(function () { puts("successfully deleted /tmp/hello"); }); ---------------------------------------- There is no guaranteed ordering to the POSIX wrappers. The following is very much prone to error ---------------------------------------- node.fs.rename("/tmp/hello", "/tmp/world"); node.fs.stat("/tmp/world").addCallback(function (stats) { puts("stats: " + JSON.stringify(stats)); }); ---------------------------------------- It could be that +stat()+ is executed before the +rename()+. The correct way to do this is to chain the promises. ---------------------------------------- node.fs.rename("/tmp/hello", "/tmp/world") .addCallback(function () { node.fs.stat("/tmp/world") .addCallback(function (stats) { puts("stats: " + JSON.stringify(stats)); }); }); ---------------------------------------- +node.fs.rename(path1, path2)+ :: See rename(2). - on success: no parameters. - on error: no parameters. +node.fs.stat(path)+ :: See stat(2). - on success: Returns +stats+ object. It looks like this: +{ dev: 2049, ino: 305352, mode: 16877, nlink: 12, uid: 1000, gid: 1000, rdev: 0, size: 4096, blksize: 4096, blocks: 8, atime: "2009-06-29T11:11:55Z", mtime: "2009-06-29T11:11:40Z", ctime: "2009-06-29T11:11:40Z" }+ - on error: no parameters. +node.fs.unlink(path)+ :: See unlink(2) - on success: no parameters. - on error: no parameters. +node.fs.rmdir(path)+ :: See rmdir(2) - on success: no parameters. - on error: no parameters. +node.fs.close(fd)+ :: See close(2) - on success: no parameters. - on error: no parameters. +node.fs.open(path, flags, mode)+:: See open(2). The constants like +O_CREAT+ are defined at +node.O_CREAT+. - on success: +fd+ is given as the parameter. - on error: no parameters. +node.fs.write(fd, data, position)+:: Write data to the file specified by +fd+. +data+ is either an array of integers (for raw data) or a string for UTF-8 encoded characters. +position+ refers to the offset from the beginning of the file where this data should be written. If +position+ is +null+, the data will be written at the current position. See pwrite(2). - on success: returns an integer +written+ which specifies how many _bytes_ were written. - on error: no parameters. +node.fs.read(fd, length, position, encoding)+:: Read data from the file specified by +fd+. + +length+ is an integer specifying the number of bytes to read. + +position+ is an integer specifying where to begin reading from in the file. + +encoding+ is either +node.UTF8+ or +node.RAW+. + - on success: returns +data+, what was read from the file. - on error: no parameters. ==== +node.fs.File+ A buffered file object. Internal request queues exist for each instance of +node.fs.File+ so that multiple commands can be issued at once. Thus the following is safe: ---------------------------------------- var file = new node.fs.File(); file.open("/tmp/blah", "w+"); file.write("hello"); file.write("world"); file.close(); ---------------------------------------- [cols="1,2,10",options="header"] |========================================================= |Event |Parameters | Notes |+"error"+ | | Emitted if an error happens. |========================================================= +new node.fs.File(options={})+:: Creates a new file object. + The +options+ argument is optional. It can contain the following fields + - +fd+: a file descriptor for the file. - +encoding+: how +file.read()+ should return data. Either +"raw"+ or +"utf8"+. Defaults to +"raw"+. +file.open(path, mode)+:: Opens the file at +path+. + +mode+ is a string: + - "r", open for reading and writing. - "r+", open for only reading. - "w", create a new file for reading and writing; if it already exists truncate it. - "w+", create a new file for writing only; if it already exists truncate it. - "a", create a new file for writing and reading. Writes append to the end of the file. - "a+" +file.read(length, position)+:: Reads +length+ bytes from the file at +position+. +position+ can be omitted to write at the current file position. +file.write(data, position)+:: Writes +data+ to the file. +position+ can be omitted to write at the current file position. +file.close()+:: Closes the file. === HTTP The HTTP interfaces in Node are designed to support many features of the protocol which have been traditionally difficult to use. In particular, large, possibly chunk-encoded, messages. The interface is careful to never buffer entire requests or responses--the user is able to stream data. HTTP message headers are represented by an array of 2-element arrays like this ---------------------------------------- [ ["Content-Length", "123"] , ["Content-Type", "text/plain"] , ["Connection", "keep-alive"] , ["Accept", "*/*"] ] ---------------------------------------- In order to support the full spectrum of possible HTTP applications, Node's HTTP API is very low-level. It deals with connection handling and message parsing only. It parses a message into headers and body but it does not parse the actual headers or the body. That means, for example, that Node does not, and will never, provide API to access or manipulate Cookies or multi-part bodies. _This is left to the user._ ==== +node.http.Server+ [cols="1,2,10",options="header"] |========================================================= |Event | Parameters | Notes |+"request"+ | +request, response+ | +request+ is an instance of +node.http.ServerRequest+ + +response+ is an instance of +node.http.ServerResponse+ |+"connection"+ | +connection+ | When a new TCP connection is established. +connection+ is an object of type +node.http.Connection+. Usually users will not want to access this event. The +connection+ can also be accessed at +request.connection+. |========================================================= +node.http.createServer(request_listener, options);+ :: Returns a new web server object. + The +options+ argument is optional. The +options+ argument accepts the same values as the options argument for +node.tcp.Server+ does. + The +request_listener+ is a function which is automatically added to the +"request"+ event. +server.listen(port, hostname)+ :: Begin accepting connections on the specified port and hostname. If the hostname is omitted, the server will accept connections directed to any address. +server.close()+ :: Stops the server from accepting new connections. ==== +node.http.ServerRequest+ This object is created internally by a HTTP server--not by the user--and passed as the first argument to a +"request"+ listener. [cols="1,2,10",options="header"] |========================================================= |Event | Parameters | Notes |+"body"+ | +chunk+ | Emitted when a piece of the message body is received. Example: A chunk of the body is given as the single argument. The transfer-encoding has been decoded. The body chunk is either a String in the case of UTF-8 encoding or an array of numbers in the case of raw encoding. The body encoding is set with +request.setBodyEncoding()+. |+"complete"+ | | Emitted exactly once for each message. No arguments. After emitted no other events will be emitted on the request. |========================================================= +request.method+ :: The request method as a string. Read only. Example: +"GET"+, +"DELETE"+. +request.uri+ :: Request URI Object. This contains only the parameters that are present in the actual http request. That is, if the request is + ---------------------------------------- GET /status?name=ryan HTTP/1.1\r\n Accept: */*\r\n \r\n ---------------------------------------- + Then +request.uri+ will be + ---------------------------------------- { path: "/status", file: "status", directory: "/", params: { "name" : "ryan" } } ---------------------------------------- + In particular, note that +request.uri.protocol+ is +undefined+. This is because there was no URI protocol given in the actual HTTP Request. + +request.uri.anchor+, +request.uri.query+, +request.uri.file+, +request.uri.directory+, +request.uri.path+, +request.uri.relative+, +request.uri.port+, +request.uri.host+, +request.uri.password+, +request.uri.user+, +request.uri.authority+, +request.uri.protocol+, +request.uri.params+, +request.uri.toString()+, +request.uri.source+ +request.headers+ :: The request headers expressed as an array of 2-element arrays. Read only. +request.httpVersion+ :: The HTTP protocol version as a string. Read only. Examples: +"1.1"+, +"1.0"+ +request.setBodyEncoding(encoding)+ :: Set the encoding for the request body. Either +"utf8"+ or +"raw"+. Defaults to raw. +request.connection+ :: The +node.http.Connection+ object. ==== +node.http.ServerResponse+ This object is created internally by a HTTP server--not by the user. It is passed as the second parameter to the +"request"+ event. +response.sendHeader(statusCode, headers)+ :: Sends a response header to the request. The status code is a 3-digit HTTP status code, like +404+. The second argument, +headers+, should be an array of 2-element arrays, representing the response headers. + Example: + ---------------------------------------- var body = "hello world"; response.sendHeader(200, [ ["Content-Length", body.length], ["Content-Type", "text/plain"] ]); ---------------------------------------- + This method must only be called once on a message and it must be called before +response.finish()+ is called. +response.sendBody(chunk, encoding="ascii")+ :: This method must be called after +sendHeader+ was called. It sends a chunk of the response body. This method may be called multiple times to provide successive parts of the body. + If +chunk+ is a string, the second parameter specifies how to encode it into a byte stream. By default the +encoding+ is +"ascii"+. + Note: This is the raw HTTP body and has nothing to do with higher-level multi-part body encodings that may be used. +response.finish()+ :: This method signals to the server that all of the response headers and body has been sent; that server should consider this message complete. The method, +response.finish()+, MUST be called on each response. ==== +node.http.Client+ An HTTP client is constructed with a server address as its argument, the returned handle is then used to issue one or more requests. Depending on the server connected to, the client might pipeline the requests or reestablish the connection after each connection. _Currently the implementation does not pipeline requests._ Example of connecting to +google.com+ ---------------------------------------- var google = node.http.createClient(80, "google.com"); var request = google.get("/"); request.finish(function (response) { puts("STATUS: " + response.statusCode); puts("HEADERS: " + JSON.stringify(response.headers)); response.setBodyEncoding("utf8"); response.addListener("body", function (chunk) { puts("BODY: " + chunk); }); }); ---------------------------------------- +node.http.createClient(port, host)+ :: Constructs a new HTTP client. +port+ and +host+ refer to the server to be connected to. A connection is not established until a request is issued. +client.get(path, request_headers)+, +client.head(path, request_headers)+, +client.post(path, request_headers)+, +client.del(path, request_headers)+, +client.put(path, request_headers)+ :: Issues a request; if necessary establishes connection. Returns a +node.http.ClientRequest+ instance. + +request_headers+ is optional. +request_headers+ should be an array of 2-element arrays. Additional request headers might be added internally by Node. Returns a +ClientRequest+ object. + Do remember to include the +Content-Length+ header if you plan on sending a body. If you plan on streaming the body, perhaps set +Transfer-Encoding: chunked+. + NOTE: the request is not complete. This method only sends the header of the request. One needs to call +request.finish()+ to finalize the request and retrieve the response. (This sounds convoluted but it provides a chance for the user to stream a body to the server with +request.sendBody()+.) ==== +node.http.ClientRequest+ This object is created internally and returned from the request methods of a +node.http.Client+. It represents an _in-progress_ request whose header has already been sent. [cols="1,2,10",options="header"] |========================================================= |Event | Parameters | Notes |+"response"+ | +response+ | Emitted when a response is received to this request. Typically the user will set a listener to this via the +request.finish()+ method. + This event is emitted only once. + The +response+ argument will be an instance of +node.http.ClientResponse+. |========================================================= +request.sendBody(chunk, encoding="ascii")+ :: Sends a sucessive peice of the body. By calling this method many times, the user can stream a request body to a server—in that case it is suggested to use the +["Transfer-Encoding", "chunked"]+ header line when creating the request. + The +chunk+ argument should be an array of integers or a string. + The +encoding+ argument is optional and only applies when +chunk+ is a string. The encoding argument should be either +"utf8"+ or +"ascii"+. By default the body uses ASCII encoding, as it is faster. +request.finish(response_listener)+ :: Finishes sending the request. If any parts of the body are unsent, it will flush them to the socket. If the request is chunked, this will send the terminating +"0\r\n\r\n"+. + The parameter +response_listener+ is a callback which will be executed when the response headers have been received. The +response_listener+ callback is executed with one argument which is an instance of +node.http.ClientResponse+. ==== +node.http.ClientResponse+ This object is created internally and passed to the +"response"+ event. [cols="1,2,10",options="header"] |========================================================= |Event | Parameters | Notes |+"body"+ | +chunk+ | Emitted when a piece of the message body is received. Example: A chunk of the body is given as the single argument. The transfer-encoding has been decoded. The body chunk is either a String in the case of UTF-8 encoding or an array of numbers in the case of raw encoding. The body encoding is set with +response.setBodyEncoding()+. |+"complete"+ | | Emitted exactly once for each message. No arguments. After emitted no other events will be emitted on the response. |========================================================= +response.statusCode+ :: The 3-digit HTTP response status code. E.G. +404+. +response.httpVersion+ :: The HTTP version of the connected-to server. Probably either +"1.1"+ or +"1.0"+. +response.headers+ :: The response headers. An Array of 2-element arrays. +response.setBodyEncoding(encoding)+ :: Set the encoding for the response body. Either +"utf8"+ or +"raw"+. Defaults to raw. +response.client+ :: A reference to the +node.http.Client+ that this response belongs to. === TCP ==== +node.tcp.Server+ Here is an example of a echo server which listens for connections on port 7000 ---------------------------------------- function echo (socket) { socket.setEncoding("utf8"); socket.addListener("connect", function () { socket.send("hello\r\n"); }); socket.addListener("receive", function (data) { socket.send(data); }); socket.addListener("eof", function () { socket.send("goodbye\r\n"); socket.close(); }); } var server = node.tcp.createServer(echo, {backlog: 1024}); server.listen(7000, "localhost"); ---------------------------------------- [cols="1,2,10",options="header"] |========================================================= |Event | Parameters | Notes |+"connection"+ | +connection+ | Emitted when a new connection is made. +connection+ is an instance of +node.tcp.Connection+. |========================================================= +node.tcp.createServer(connection_listener, options={});+ :: Creates a new TCP server. + The +connection_listener+ argument is automatically set as a listener for the +"connection"+ event. + +options+ for now only supports one option: +backlog+ which should be an integer and describes how large of a connection backlog the operating system should maintain for this server. The +backlog+ defaults to 1024. +server.listen(port, host=null)+ :: Tells the server to listen for TCP connections to +port+ and +host+. Note, +host+ is optional. If +host+ is not specified the server will accept connections to any IP address on the specified port. +server.close()+:: Stops the server from accepting new connections. ==== +node.tcp.Connection+ This object is used as a TCP client and also as a server-side socket for +node.tcp.Server+. [cols="1,2,10",options="header"] |========================================================= |Event | Parameters | Notes |+"connect"+ | | Call once the connection is established. |+"receive"+ | +data+ | Called when data is received on the connection. Encoding of data is set by +connection.setEncoding()+. +data+ will either be a string, in the case of utf8, or an array of integer in the case of raw encoding. |+"eof"+ | | Called when the other end of the connection sends a FIN packet. After this is emitted the +readyState+ will be +"writeOnly"+. One should probably just call +connection.close()+ when this event is emitted. |+"disconnect"+ | +had_error+ | Emitted once the connection is fully disconnected. The argument +had_error+ is a boolean which says if the connection was closed due to a transmission error. (TODO: access error codes.) |========================================================= +node.tcp.createConnection(port, host="127.0.0.1")+:: Creates a new connection object and opens a connection to the specified +port+ and +host+. If the second parameter is omitted, localhost is assumed. +connection.remoteAddress+:: The string representation of the remote IP address. For example, +"74.125.127.100"+ or +"2001:4860:a005::68"+. + This member is only present in server-side connections. +connection.readyState+:: Either +"closed"+, +"open"+, +"opening"+, +"readOnly"+, or +"writeOnly"+. +connection.setEncoding(encoding)+:: Sets the encoding (either +"utf8"+ or +"raw"+) for data that is received. +connection.send(data, encoding="ascii")+:: Sends data on the connection. The data should be eithre an array of integers (for raw binary) or a string (for utf8 or ascii). The second parameter specifies the encoding in the case of a string--it defaults to ASCII because encoding to UTF8 is rather slow. +connection.close()+:: Half-closes the connection. I.E. sends a FIN packet. It is possible the server will still send some data. After calling this +readyState+ will be +"readOnly"+. +connection.fullClose()+:: Close both ends of the connection. Data that is received after this call is responded to with RST packets. If you don't know about this, just use +close()+. +connection.forceClose()+:: Ensures that no more I/O activity happens on this socket. Only necessary in case of errors (parse error or so). // vim: set syntax=asciidoc: