I installed Node.js and integrated Socket.io.

In a file called “appudp.js”, I have the following code:

var dgram = require('dgram');

var message = new Buffer("5656"); // Whatever the number could be...

var client = dgram.createSocket("udp4");

client.on("error", function (err) {

    console.log("Socket error: " + err);

});

// At every second, send a message...

setInterval(function(){

client.send(message, 0, message.length, 1337, "127.0.0.1", function(err, bytes) {

    console.log("err : " + err + " | bytes : " + bytes + " | Message : " + message);

});

}, 1000);

I go in command prompt, type “node app.js”. I get:

err: null | bytes: 4 | Message: 5656

All good so far.

In MaxMsp, I have this very simple patch: http://i.imgur.com/FQrvO.png

Yet, as you can see in the screen capture, it gives me the error :

OSC Bad message name string: DataAfterAlignedString: Unreasonably long string Dropping entire message.

Being somewhat new to MaxMsp, I end up being completely lost. Help?

I’m thinking it has to do with the content of the Buffer object (has to be an integer?) and the encoding (ascii?), but I’m not completely sure.

Thank you very much for your time!

https://github.com/fde31/node-MaxComm

https://github.com/fde31/MaxClientJS

I was now wondering if it was ever possible to send a TCP message from a local webpage? I thought the code under “// this client only sends” would enable me to do so, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, nothing in this section seems to be executed when I log on the page 127.0.0.1:6001 or 6000.

Is it because I’m misunderstanding the principles of TCP?

Thank you again.

Browsers cannot communicate natively over raw TCP. HTTP uses TCP but you can’t script the browser to communicate over raw TCP. You’ll have to use something like Socket.IO, websockets, long polling, or just HTTP requests (easy but slow).

TCP is just a generic way for sending messages between a client and a server. Web servers do use TCP to send messages from the browser to the server, but just because something uses TCP doesn’t mean it will automatically work in the browser.

Here is a diagram of a possible implementation:

Browser to Max: Browser (running Socket.IO client) ---> Node JS (Socket.IO server) ---> Node JS (TCP client) ---> Max MSP (mxj net.tcp.recv)

Max to Browser: Max MSP (mxj net.tcp.send) ---> Node JS (TCP server) ---> Node JS (Socket.IO server) ---> Browser (running Socket.IO client)

Flash understands TCP sockets, so you could probably cut out a step if you use Flash in the browser.

I will try and expand the example with browser functionality when I have some time.

From Max, click “foo bar baz”. It will send that to the browser. The browser will respond with “hello from browser”.

Obviously this is a basic example but shows a round trip from Max to the browser, and back.

https://github.com/fde31/MaxClientJS

an alternative way could be based on the original post, but replacing [udpreceive] with [sadam.udpReceiver]. In this case, one would simply get the message as a list of ascii byte codes.

Hope that helps,
Ádám