Send and receive binary data over web sockets in Javascript?

Question

It is possible to send and receive binary data over web sockets in Javascript? Could I, for example, implement an SSH client using web sockets?

Answer 1

Now you can send and receive binary data easily, this article explain lot of thinks : http://blog.mgechev.com/2015/02/06/parsing-binary-protocol-data-javascript-typedarrays-blobs/

Here is how I receive binary numpy array sent with python (my_nparray.tobytes()) in my browser:

ws = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:51234");
ws.binaryType = 'blob';
var buffer;

ws.onmessage = function (evt) {
    var reader = new FileReader();
    reader.readAsArrayBuffer(evt.data);
    reader.addEventListener("loadend", function(e)
    {
        buffer = new Uint16Array(e.target.result);  // arraybuffer object
    });
};

You can convert typed array to javascript array with this:

Array.prototype.slice.call(buffer.slice());