Large file upload with WebSocket

Question

I'm trying to upload large files (at least 500MB, preferably up to a few GB) using the WebSocket API. The problem is that I can't figure out how to write "send this slice of the file, release the resources used then repeat". I was hoping I could avoid using something like Flash/Silverlight for this.

Currently, I'm working with something along the lines of:

function FileSlicer(file) {
    // randomly picked 1MB slices,
    // I don't think this size is important for this experiment
    this.sliceSize = 1024*1024;  
    this.slices = Math.ceil(file.size / this.sliceSize);

    this.currentSlice = 0;

    this.getNextSlice = function() {
        var start = this.currentSlice * this.sliceSize;
        var end = Math.min((this.currentSlice+1) * this.sliceSize, file.size);
        ++this.currentSlice;

        return file.slice(start, end);
    }
}

Then, I would upload using:

function Uploader(url, file) {
    var fs = new FileSlicer(file);
    var socket = new WebSocket(url);

    socket.onopen = function() {
        for(var i = 0; i < fs.slices; ++i) {
            socket.send(fs.getNextSlice()); // see below
        }
    }
}

Basically this returns immediately, bufferedAmount is unchanged (0) and it keeps iterating and adding all the slices to the queue before attempting to send it; there's no socket.afterSend to allow me to queue it properly, which is where I'm stuck.

Answer 1

I believe the send() method is asynchronous which is why it will return immediately. To make it queue, you'd need the server to send a message back to the client after each slice is uploaded; the client can then decide whether it needs to send the next slice or a "upload complete" message back to the server.

This sort of thing would probably be easier using XMLHttpRequest(2); it has callback support built-in and is also more widely supported than the WebSocket API.