hyperpc

Asynchronous bidirectional RPC in Javascript that works over any binary stream. Supports passing both callbacks and arbitrary streams (both in object and binary mode) to the remote end. An optional promise mode allows to return promises and use the remote API with async/await. Also supports rpcifying objects and constructors.

Uses multiplex under the hood to float many streams through a single binary stream.

In the spirit of dnode, rpc-stream, muxrpc and rpc-multistream.

Installation

npm install hyperpc

Usage

  var hyperpc = require('hyperpc')
 
  var values = ['hello', 'world!']
  var api = {
    upper: (str, cb) => cb(null, str.toUpperCase()),
    readStream: (str, cb) => {
      var rs = new stream.Readable({
        objectMode: true,
        read () { this.push(values.length ? values.shift() : null)}
      })
      cb(null, rs)
    }
  }
 
  var server = hyperpc(api)
  var client = hyperpc()
 
  server.pipe(client).pipe(server)
  // usually, you'd do something like:
  // server.pipe(serverSideTransportStream).pipe(server)
  // clientTransport.pipe(client).pipe(clientTransport)
 
  client.on('remote', (remote) => {
    remote.upper('foo', (err, res) => {
      console.log(res) // FOO
    })
 
    remote.readStream('bar', (err, rs) => {
      rs.on('data', (data) => {
        console.log(data)
      })
      rs.on('end', () => console.log('read stream ended'))
 
      // prints:
      // hello
      // world!
      // read stream ended
    })
  })
})

More examples are in test.js and examples/.

API

var stream = hyperpc([api], [opts])

api is an object of functions. The functions can be called from the remote site. The implementing side may call any callbacks that are passed. For both the call and the callbacks you may pass streams, callbacks or errors as args. They all work transparently over the remote connection. Supported streams are readable streams, writable streams, duplex streams in both object and binary modes. If a transform stream is passed, it is assumed to be a readable stream if it does not have pipes assigned (i.e. is piped to but not piped from).

opts and their defaults are:

• log: false: Enable debug mode. Log all messages to console.log
• name: null: Set a name for this end of the connection. Only used in log mode.
• promise: false: Support returning promises (experimental)

RPCifying objects

hyperpc supports passing classes (functions with constructors) or instances (objects with bound function properties) through a helper, hyperpc.rpcify, to make transparent calls to the instance on the backend. See test/object.js for examples.

Support for promises and async/await

Return values are ignored, unless { promise: true } is set in opts AND the return value is a promise. In that case, on the remote end a promise is returned as well and the resolve/reject callbacks are streamed transparently.

This allows to use hyperpc with async/await:

  var api = {
    promtest: async function (str) {
      if (!str) throw new Error('no arg')
      return str.toUpperCase()
    }
  }
 
  var server = hyperpc(api, {promise: true})
  var client = hyperpc(null, {promise: true})
 
  pump(server, client, server)
 
  client.on('remote', async (api) => {
    var val = 'hello'
    try {
      var bar = await api.promtest(val)
      console.log(bar)
    } catch (err) {
      console.log(err.message)
    }
    // prints "HELLO", and would print "no arg" if val were false.
  })

Motivation

There's many RPC-over-streams modules already. Why another one? First, I wanted to learn streams in-depth. Second, hyperpc uses multiplex under the hood, and supports setting up arbitrary binary streams from both ends, so it should be fast to not only exchange RPC messages, but only binary data streams. No benchmarks though, yet.

Some differences to other great modules in this space:

• dnode: The oldest kid on the block. Does not support streams as arguments natively though.
• muxrpc: The preferred streaming RPC in Scuttlebut land. Uses pull-streams, which I didn't want to include. Needs a manifest, which hyperpc does not.
• rpc-multistream: Similar feature set to hyperpc, also uses multiplex. hyperpc can be considered a rewrite, with additional suppport for Promises.