txWS 0.6.2

Twisted WebSockets wrapper

txWS (prounounced “Twisted WebSockets”) is a small, short, simple library for adding WebSockets support to your favorite Twisted applications.

Usage

Use txws.WebSocketFactory to wrap your factories. That’s it! Adding WebSockets support has never been easier.

>>> from txws import WebSocketFactory
>>> reactor.listenTCP(8080, WebSocketFactory(factory_to_wrap))

There is no extra trick to txWS. There is no special setup involved.

Do you want secure WebSockets? Use listenSSL() instead of listenTCP().

Versions

txWS supports the following versions of the WebSockets draft:

• Version 76

  • Hixie-76

  • HyBi-00

• Version 7

  • HyBi-07

• Version 8

  • HyBi-08

In case you’re wondering, the version numbers above are correct; WebSockets versioning is not sane.

Comparisons

Here’s how txWS compares to other Twisted WebSockets libraries.

txWebSockets

txWS, unlike txWebSockets, doesn’t reuse any HTTP machinery and doesn’t pretend to be HTTP. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends largely on whether the WebSockets standard ends up being a valid HTTP subset.

txWS supports newer WS versions 7 and 8, but txWebSockets supports the older version 75. Both libraries support version 76.

Autobahn

Autobahn provides a client library for WebSockets as well as a server, and provides a fancy set of messaging protocols on top of the WS layer. Autobahn also provides support for WS version 10.

However, Autobahn doesn’t provide support for WS version 76, and requires clients to subclass their factories and protocols in order to provide WS functionality. txWS uses a compositional approach with wrapped protocols, allowing completely transparent reuse of existing protocols and factories.