I am new to Node.js and Express, and I am facing an issue with accessing the socket.io object in other modules. I tried creating a global variable to hold a socket object, but once the connection is closed by the user, the socket becomes unavailable. Although technically the connection still exists, I delete it for resource management reasons.
Take note that every time a connection is established, we assign that socket to the global variable which can then be accessed by all other modules.
// App.js
var io = require('socket.io').listen(server);
var sessionsConnections = {};
io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket)
{
global.socket = socket;
sessionsConnections[socket.id] = socket;
.....
}
socket.on("disconnect", function()
{
delete sessionsConnections[socket.id];
});
// Match.js
global.socket.emit('lobby:createMatch', data);
If the last assigned connection to the global variable closes, it could cause issues for Match.js. Currently, Match.js is the only module that requires the socket.io reference. It contains various exports for event handling, emitting changes, and rendering views.
Any suggestions on how to handle this situation? Is there a way to create an initial socket connection in App.js that serves as a global reference?