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Warning: This tutorial uses an old version of cowboy, an old version of rebar and an old version of Erlang. It doesn't work with new versions.

Cowboy chat tutorial

This tutorial describes creating a very simple web chat application written in Erlang, using the Cowboy web server.

One step in this tutorial is one commit in the repository. So if any step is not clear, you can check the respective commit.

I. Initial project setup

This section details how to set up a proper Erlang project. We will create an application and a release.

If you wish to skip this test, you can clone this repository, check out the section-2 tag and jump to section II in this README.

1. Add rebar binary

We will use the rebar tool for building our releases, so let's download that:

$ mkdir cowboy_chat
$ cd cowboy_chat
$ wget https://raw.github.com/wiki/rebar/rebar/rebar
$ chmod +x rebar

2. Create chat application

Let's use rebar to generate an application skeleton for us:

$ mkdir -p apps/chat
$ cd apps/chat/
$ ../../rebar create-app appid=chat

3. Create chat release

Let's go back to the root directory of our project, create a rel directory and ask rebar to generate a release inside rel:

$ mkdir rel
$ cd rel
$ ../rebar create-node nodeid=chat
$ $MY_EDITOR reltool.config

Let's change lib_dirs in line 2 from [] to ["../apps", "../deps"]. We will store our applications in apps and our dependencies in deps.

4. Add rebar.config

Let's create a file called rebar.config. rebar will use this file to decide (among other things) which directories to handle and what dependencies to download.

Let's add the following content to rebar.config:

{sub_dirs, [
    "apps/chat",
    "rel"
]}.

{deps, [
    {mimetypes, ".*", {git, "git://github.com/spawngrid/mimetypes.git", {tag, "1.0"}}},
    {cowboy, ".*", {git, "git://github.com/extend/cowboy", {tag, "0.8.6"}}}
]}.

5. Add cowboy apps to reltool.config

Edit rel/reltool.config: add the crypto, mimetypes, ranch and cowboy applications to sys/rel and add them as sys/app entries.

6. Add the appmon application (and its dependencies) to reltool.config

Let's add the following applications as sys/app entries: gs, runtime_tools, appmon. runtime_tools also needs to be added as a sys/app entry.

II. Try out the release

In this section, we will create a release and start it.

7. Fetch dependencies, compile code, generate a release

First let's download all dependencies that our project needs (based on rebar.config):

$ ./rebar get-deps

Then compile everything:

$ ./rebar compile

Finally generate a release:

$ ./rebar generate

8. Try the release

Let's start the release by running the chat program and giving it a console parameter:

$ rel/chat/bin/chat console

We are now in the Erlang shell. We can start the application monitor by typing

> appmon:start().

We should see a graphical window. Click on the chat button and observe that we have 3 processes.

We can stop the console by typing CTRL-C.

Start the chat program without arguments and have a look at the different actions that we can perform on it:

$ rel/chat/bin/chat

When we modify something in the code later and want to recompile the code, regenerate the release and restart the chat, the following is the quickest way to do that:

$ ./rebar compile generate skip-deps=true && rel/chat/bin/chat console

III. Implement basic chat server

In this section, we will implement a basic chat server. We will do that in small steps, so that we can test our new code at the end of each step.

9. Add chat_room gen_server

Let's create a gen_server chat_room.erl in apps/chat/src. The following is a gen_server skeleton that can be just copied into the new file:

-module(chat_room).
-behaviour(gen_server).

-export([start_link/0]).

%% gen_server callbacks
-export([init/1, handle_call/3, handle_cast/2, handle_info/2, terminate/2,
         code_change/3]).

-define(SERVER, ?MODULE).

-record(state, {}).

%%%=============================================================================
%%% API
%%%=============================================================================

start_link() ->
    gen_server:start_link({local, ?SERVER}, ?MODULE, [], []).

%%%=============================================================================
%%% gen_server callbacks
%%%=============================================================================

init([]) ->
    {ok, #state{}}.

handle_call(_Request, _From, State) ->
    {noreply, State}.

handle_cast(_Msg, State) ->
    {noreply, State}.

handle_info(_Info, State) ->
    {noreply, State}.

terminate(_Reason, _State) ->
    ok.

code_change(_OldVsn, State, _Extra) ->
    {ok, State}.

%%%=============================================================================
%%% Internal functions
%%%=============================================================================

We also need to add the chat_room server to the supervisor (which will start and supervise it). That means that we need to add the following to the empty list in the body of init/1:

?CHILD(chat_room, worker)

After regenerating the release and starting appmon, the new chat_room process will appear in the chat application.

10. Serve static webpage with Cowboy

Let's create the apps/chat/priv/static directory with the following files:

  • index.html:

    <html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
    <title>Chat room application</title>
    <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script src="/static/chat.js"></script>
  </head>
  <body>
  Hello
  </body>
</html>

  • main.js:

    console.log("chat.js loaded");
// or window.alert("chat.js loaded");

To ask Cowboy to serve these static files, we need to create dispatch rules and start a Cowboy server. A good place to do that is chat_room:init:

init([]) ->
    Dispatch = cowboy_router:compile([
        {'_', [

               {"/", cowboy_static,
                [{directory, {priv_dir, chat, [<<"static">>]}},
                 {file, <<"index.html">>},
                 {mimetypes, {fun mimetypes:path_to_mimes/2, default}}]},

               {"/static/[...]", cowboy_static,
                [{directory, {priv_dir, chat, [<<"static">>]}},
                 {mimetypes, {fun mimetypes:path_to_mimes/2, default}}]}

              ]}
    ]),

    cowboy:start_http(chat, 100,
                      [{port, 8080}],
                      [{env, [{dispatch, Dispatch}]}]),

    {ok, #state{}}.

In chat_room:terminate, we should stop the cowboy listener:

terminate(_Reason, _State) ->
    cowboy:stop_listener(chat).

After compiling/regenerating/starting the release, we will be able to connect to http://localhost:8080 in the browser.

11. Add dummy websocket handler

Now that we can serve a static website, let's make it possible for clients to connect to our server via websockets! Our websocket server won't be very smart, it will just echo back to the client whatever it receives from it.

So let's create a Cowboy websocket handler apps/chat/src/chat_ws_handler.erl that can echo the messages:

-module(chat_ws_handler).
-behaviour(cowboy_websocket_handler).

-export([init/3]).
-export([websocket_init/3]).
-export([websocket_handle/3]).
-export([websocket_info/3]).
-export([websocket_terminate/3]).

init({tcp, http}, _Req, _Opts) ->
    {upgrade, protocol, cowboy_websocket}.

websocket_init(_TransportName, Req, _Opts) ->
    {ok, Req, undefined_state}.

websocket_handle({text, Msg}, Req, State) ->
    {reply, {text, << "You said: ", Msg/binary >>}, Req, State};
websocket_handle(_Data, Req, State) ->
    {ok, Req, State}.

websocket_info(_Info, Req, State) ->
    {ok, Req, State}.

websocket_terminate(_Reason, _Req, _State) ->
    ok.

We also need to add a dispatch rule to our list of rules to let Cowboy know when to use our handler:

{"/ws", chat_ws_handler, []}

12. (Optional) Install Chrome web socket client and send messages to the server

If you would like to test your web socket before writing any JavaScript, you can install the Simple WebSocket Client extension in Google Chrome, connect to the server from that and send messages.

13. Write web page that interacts with the server

Now let's implement some actual interaction between the client and the server. That is, the HTML and the JavaScript code served by the server should contact the server via the websocket.

So let's modify the HTML code to contain an input box, a "send" button and a "messages" div. Modify the JavaScript so that:

  • on startup it connects to the server via a websocket;
  • when the "send" button is pressed, the content of the input box is sent to the server;
  • when the server sends a message, the message it appended to the "messages" div.

If you don't want to code HTML and JavaScript now, here is a solution:

  • index.html:

    [...]
<body>
  <input type="text" id="message"></input>
  <button id="send-button">Send</button>
  <div id="messages"></div>
</body>
[...]

  • main.js:

    var socket;

function add_message(message) {
    $('#messages').append('<p></p>').children().last().text(message);
}

function read_message_input() {
    return $('#message').val();
}

function connect_to_chat() {

    socket = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:8080/ws");

    socket.onopen = function() {
        add_message("Connected.")
    };

    socket.onmessage = function(event) {
        add_message(event.data);
    };

    socket.onclose = function() {
        add_message("Connection closed.");
    };
}

function send_message(e) {
    var message = read_message_input();
    add_message(message);
    socket.send(message);
    $('#message').val("");
}

$(document).ready(function() {
    connect_to_chat();
    $('#send-button').click(send_message);
})

14. Implement a chat server

Implement the following interface for the chat_room server:

  • enter(Pid): a new client process (which represents a user) enters the chat room. You can store the list of users in the chat room in the state record.
  • leave(Pid): a client leaves the room.
  • send_message(Pid, Message): send message Message to all client processes in the room except Pid.

Implement the followings behaviour in chat_ws_handler:

  • When initializing and terminating, call chat_room:enter and chat_room:leave.
  • When receiving a message from the client, call chat_room:send_message instead of sending the message back to the client.
  • When receiving a message from the chat_room server, send that message to the client.

IV. Implement improvements

The followings improvements are a good idea to implement:

  • Create another text box for the nickname and show the nickname of the person sending a message. Handle the case when someone changes their nickname.
  • Display when a client is typing into the text box to the other clients.