encode stream does not proactively send data to its output

If you create an encode stream and pipe it somewhere (for example, the network), the data you send to the stream won’t be forwarded automatically. It only seems to be sent when the server end()'s the writable stream. This makes the transform stream basically unusable for streaming realtime data.

There’s a workaround of calling stream.encoder.flush(), but that seems brittle.

[rjeczalik]

@kawanet WebSocket is message-oriented, so msgpack.encode() will work. How to handle streaming msgpack e.g. over raw tcp socket? Like this simple echo server:

const echo = (value, enc) => {
  enc.write(value)
  enc._flush() // required, otherwise client won't get the the response
}

net.createServer(socket => {
  const enc = msgpack.createEncodeStream()
  const dec = msgpack.createDecodeStream()

  enc.pipe(socket)
  socket.pipe(dec)

  dec.on('data', value => echo(value, enc))
}).listen(3300)

[kawanet]

Right.

msgpack.createEncodeStream() instance does not manage Stream buffer for each item. One item might be splitted for multiple chunks encoded or buffered for while. Multiple items might be joined for a single chunk.

Using it with fs Stream would work great because memory copy operations reduced. Using it with net Stream may not cause trouble in some cases when chunks splitted.

I rather use the simple msgpack.encode() interface for WebSocket messaging applications.