The interfaces for using WebSockets can vary a lot between Node libraries, socket servers, and the browser. It can be tricky getting both ends to talk to each other.

**Get-socket** provides a consistent interface you can use everywhere.

Set up a server to listen for socket connections:

```javascript
var http = require("http")
var getSocket = require("get-socket")
var server = http.createServer()

getSocket.handleConnections(
  server,
  function(socket, next) {
    socket.listen(function(message) {
      console.log(message)
    })
  }
)

server.start(4040)
```

Then use getSocket to send a message:

```javascript
getSocket("ws://localhost:4040",
  function(socket) {
    socket.send("hello, server!")
  }
)
```

Or listen for messages from the server:

```javascript
getSocket.handleConnections(
  server,
  function(socket, next) {
    socket.listen(function(message) {
      console.log(message)
    })

    socket.send("hello, client!")
  }
)
```

Or use browser-bridge to do the same from the browser:

```javascript
var http = require("http")
var getSocket = require("get-socket")
var BrowserBridge = require("browser-bridge")

var server = http.createServer(sendPage)

function sendPage(request, response) {
  var bridge = new BrowserBridge()

  var listen = bridge.defineFunction(
    [getSocket.defineOn(bridge)],
    function(getSocket) {
      getSocket(function(socket) {
        socket.send("greetings from the browser!")

        socket.listen(console.log)
      })
    }
  )

  bridge.asap(listen)

  response.writeHead(200)
  response.end(bridge.toHtml())
}
```

Check out [demo.js](demo.js) for the complete example.

## Also recommended

GetSocket lets you set up generic connection handlers for all incoming connections, but if you want to set up different listeners for different clients in advance, consider [single-use-socket](https://www.npmjs.com/package/single-use-socket).