How to handle websocket with dart:io Flutter - flutter

Question

I would like to avoid using the package web_socket_channel which despite its vote doesn't seem to not be actively maintained (many github issues not answered) and doesn't handle errors.
I simply need to connect from Flutter to my WebSocket API in AWS.
How can i do that with dart:io package ? Or is it possible with socket_io_client ? I see that the connection is with http and not wss.

Answer 1

I have found a way in addition to the usual try - catch to handle error in the channel.sink.listen StreamSubscription object with the web_socket_channel package.
You can do the following according to this answer :
_channel = IOWebSocketChannel.connect(
'ws://yourserver.com:port',
);
///
/// Start listening to new notifications / messages
///
_channel.stream.listen(
(dynamic message) {
debugPrint('message $message');
},
onDone: () {
debugPrint('ws channel closed');
},
onError: (error) {
debugPrint('ws error $error');
},
);
This actually works and there is no need to use SocketIO in my use case of course.

Answer 2

I recommend you to use this multiplatform websocket package https://pub.dev/packages/websocket_universal . There you can even use low-level webSocket interactions.
Complete example:
import 'package:websocket_universal/websocket_universal.dart';
/// Example works with Postman Echo server
void main() async {
/// Postman echo ws server (you can use your own server URI)
/// 'wss://ws.postman-echo.com/raw'
/// For local server it could look like 'ws://127.0.0.1:42627/websocket'
const websocketConnectionUri = 'wss://ws.postman-echo.com/raw';
const textMessageToServer = 'Hello server!';
const connectionOptions = SocketConnectionOptions(
pingIntervalMs: 3000, // send Ping message every 3000 ms
timeoutConnectionMs: 4000, // connection fail timeout after 4000 ms
/// see ping/pong messages in [logEventStream] stream
skipPingMessages: false,
/// Set this attribute to `true` if do not need any ping/pong
/// messages and ping measurement. Default is `false`
pingRestrictionForce: false,
);
/// Example with simple text messages exchanges with server
/// (not recommended for applications)
/// [<String, String>] generic types mean that we receive [String] messages
/// after deserialization and send [String] messages to server.
final IMessageProcessor<String, String> textSocketProcessor =
SocketSimpleTextProcessor();
final textSocketHandler = IWebSocketHandler<String, String>.createClient(
websocketConnectionUri, // Postman echo ws server
textSocketProcessor,
connectionOptions: connectionOptions,
);
// Listening to webSocket status changes
textSocketHandler.socketHandlerStateStream.listen((stateEvent) {
// ignore: avoid_print
print('> status changed to ${stateEvent.status}');
});
// Listening to server responses:
textSocketHandler.incomingMessagesStream.listen((inMsg) {
// ignore: avoid_print
print('> webSocket got text message from server: "$inMsg" '
'[ping: ${textSocketHandler.pingDelayMs}]');
});
// Listening to debug events inside webSocket
textSocketHandler.logEventStream.listen((debugEvent) {
// ignore: avoid_print
print('> debug event: ${debugEvent.socketLogEventType}'
' [ping=${debugEvent.pingMs} ms]. Debug message=${debugEvent.message}');
});
// Listening to outgoing messages:
textSocketHandler.outgoingMessagesStream.listen((inMsg) {
// ignore: avoid_print
print('> webSocket sent text message to server: "$inMsg" '
'[ping: ${textSocketHandler.pingDelayMs}]');
});
// Connecting to server:
final isTextSocketConnected = await textSocketHandler.connect();
if (!isTextSocketConnected) {
// ignore: avoid_print
print('Connection to [$websocketConnectionUri] failed for some reason!');
return;
}
textSocketHandler.sendMessage(textMessageToServer);
await Future<void>.delayed(const Duration(seconds: 30));
// Disconnecting from server:
await textSocketHandler.disconnect('manual disconnect');
// Disposing webSocket:
textSocketHandler.close();
}