Class: ActionCable::Channel::Base

Inherits:
Object
  • Object
show all
Includes:
Broadcasting, Callbacks, Naming, PeriodicTimers, Streams, ActiveSupport::Rescuable
Defined in:
lib/action_cable/channel/base.rb

Overview

# Action Cable Channel Base

The channel provides the basic structure of grouping behavior into logical units when communicating over the WebSocket connection. You can think of a channel like a form of controller, but one that’s capable of pushing content to the subscriber in addition to simply responding to the subscriber’s direct requests.

Channel instances are long-lived. A channel object will be instantiated when the cable consumer becomes a subscriber, and then lives until the consumer disconnects. This may be seconds, minutes, hours, or even days. That means you have to take special care not to do anything silly in a channel that would balloon its memory footprint or whatever. The references are forever, so they won’t be released as is normally the case with a controller instance that gets thrown away after every request.

Long-lived channels (and connections) also mean you’re responsible for ensuring that the data is fresh. If you hold a reference to a user record, but the name is changed while that reference is held, you may be sending stale data if you don’t take precautions to avoid it.

The upside of long-lived channel instances is that you can use instance variables to keep reference to objects that future subscriber requests can interact with. Here’s a quick example:

class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel
  def subscribed
    @room = Chat::Room[params[:room_number]]
  end

  def speak(data)
    @room.speak data, user: current_user
  end
end

The #speak action simply uses the Chat::Room object that was created when the channel was first subscribed to by the consumer when that subscriber wants to say something in the room.

## Action processing

Unlike subclasses of ActionController::Base, channels do not follow a RESTful constraint form for their actions. Instead, Action Cable operates through a remote-procedure call model. You can declare any public method on the channel (optionally taking a ‘data` argument), and this method is automatically exposed as callable to the client.

Example:

class AppearanceChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel
  def subscribed
    @connection_token = generate_connection_token
  end

  def unsubscribed
    current_user.disappear @connection_token
  end

  def appear(data)
    current_user.appear @connection_token, on: data['appearing_on']
  end

  def away
    current_user.away @connection_token
  end

  private
    def generate_connection_token
      SecureRandom.hex(36)
    end
end

In this example, the subscribed and unsubscribed methods are not callable methods, as they were already declared in ActionCable::Channel::Base, but ‘#appear` and `#away` are. `#generate_connection_token` is also not callable, since it’s a private method. You’ll see that appear accepts a data parameter, which it then uses as part of its model call. ‘#away` does not, since it’s simply a trigger action.

Also note that in this example, ‘current_user` is available because it was marked as an identifying attribute on the connection. All such identifiers will automatically create a delegation method of the same name on the channel instance.

## Rejecting subscription requests

A channel can reject a subscription request in the #subscribed callback by invoking the #reject method:

class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel
  def subscribed
    @room = Chat::Room[params[:room_number]]
    reject unless current_user.can_access?(@room)
  end
end

In this example, the subscription will be rejected if the ‘current_user` does not have access to the chat room. On the client-side, the `Channel#rejected` callback will get invoked when the server rejects the subscription request.

Instance Attribute Summary collapse

Class Method Summary collapse

Instance Method Summary collapse

Methods included from Broadcasting

#broadcast_to, #broadcasting_for

Methods included from Naming

#channel_name

Methods included from Streams

#stop_all_streams, #stop_stream_for, #stop_stream_from, #stream_for, #stream_from, #stream_or_reject_for

Constructor Details

#initialize(connection, identifier, params = {}) ⇒ Base

Returns a new instance of Base.



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# File 'lib/action_cable/channel/base.rb', line 155

def initialize(connection, identifier, params = {})
  @connection = connection
  @identifier = identifier
  @params     = params

  # When a channel is streaming via pubsub, we want to delay the confirmation
  # transmission until pubsub subscription is confirmed.
  #
  # The counter starts at 1 because it's awaiting a call to #subscribe_to_channel
  @defer_subscription_confirmation_counter = Concurrent::AtomicFixnum.new(1)

  @reject_subscription = nil
  @subscription_confirmation_sent = nil

  delegate_connection_identifiers
end

Instance Attribute Details

#connection ⇒ Object (readonly)

Returns the value of attribute connection.



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# File 'lib/action_cable/channel/base.rb', line 117

def connection
  @connection
end

#identifier ⇒ Object (readonly)

Returns the value of attribute identifier.



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# File 'lib/action_cable/channel/base.rb', line 117

def identifier
  @identifier
end

#params ⇒ Object (readonly)

Returns the value of attribute params.



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# File 'lib/action_cable/channel/base.rb', line 117

def params
  @params
end

Class Method Details

.action_methods ⇒ Object

A list of method names that should be considered actions. This includes all public instance methods on a channel, less any internal methods (defined on Base), adding back in any methods that are internal, but still exist on the class itself.

#### Returns

  • ‘Set` - A set of all methods that should be considered actions.



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# File 'lib/action_cable/channel/base.rb', line 128

def action_methods
  @action_methods ||= begin
    # All public instance methods of this class, including ancestors
    methods = (public_instance_methods(true) -
      # Except for public instance methods of Base and its ancestors
      ActionCable::Channel::Base.public_instance_methods(true) +
      # Be sure to include shadowed public instance methods of this class
      public_instance_methods(false)).uniq.map(&:to_s)
    methods.to_set
  end
end

Instance Method Details

#perform_action(data) ⇒ Object

Extract the action name from the passed data and process it via the channel. The process will ensure that the action requested is a public method on the channel declared by the user (so not one of the callbacks like #subscribed).



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# File 'lib/action_cable/channel/base.rb', line 175

def perform_action(data)
  action = extract_action(data)

  if processable_action?(action)
    payload = { channel_class: self.class.name, action: action, data: data }
    ActiveSupport::Notifications.instrument("perform_action.action_cable", payload) do
      dispatch_action(action, data)
    end
  else
    logger.error "Unable to process #{action_signature(action, data)}"
  end
end

#subscribe_to_channel ⇒ Object

This method is called after subscription has been added to the connection and confirms or rejects the subscription.



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# File 'lib/action_cable/channel/base.rb', line 190

def subscribe_to_channel
  run_callbacks :subscribe do
    subscribed
  end

  reject_subscription if subscription_rejected?
  ensure_confirmation_sent
end

#unsubscribe_from_channel ⇒ Object

Called by the cable connection when it’s cut, so the channel has a chance to cleanup with callbacks. This method is not intended to be called directly by the user. Instead, override the #unsubscribed callback.



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# File 'lib/action_cable/channel/base.rb', line 202

def unsubscribe_from_channel # :nodoc:
  run_callbacks :unsubscribe do
    unsubscribed
  end
end