Are websockets used in shiny

[vinayprakash808]

Hi all,

In shiny architecture (client and server model), are web-sockets requests used? Or is it only http request that is sent to server?

I know this is very direct question, but wanted to understand the back end working of shiny?

[ismirsehregal]

Yes, websockets are a essential building block of shiny. Please check the following:

Chapter 11 Communicate between R and JS | Outstanding User Interfaces with Shiny

[vinayprakash808]

Thanks,

However While researching in google, I just got this.
I know google may not give right suggestions all the time. But just wanted to double check

[ismirsehregal]

That sentence is out of context. The curly brackets indicate that the author is referring to the R package library(websocket) (not websockets in general):

In practice, Shiny does not use {websocket} . As mentioned earlier, the client is directly built from JS. To better understand the whole process, we are going to design a simple web page containing an HTML range slider, pass its value from JS to R through the websocket, so that R can produce a simple histogram.

Here is the source.

Maybe you have trust in code, please see:

• this line
• or this line
• and this line

shiny imports and uses library(httpuv) which is described as follows:

httpuv provides low-level socket and protocol support for handling HTTP and WebSocket requests directly from within R. It uses a multithreaded architecture, where I/O is handled on one thread, and the R callbacks are handled on another.