通过TCP / IP接收输入并使用它来更新HTML

Question

This has got to be a FAQ, so can someone please just direct me to a "network programming for dummies" URL?

The server wants to push information to a client or broadcast to all, when an event happens - as opposed to the clients constantly polling the server "just in case". The client then updates a browser page display.

How do I do that? (toldya it was a n00b question)

Should I have a thread which receives info on a socket and then writes it to a database which the browser display (PHP) can process with an HTML refresh tag, or what?

Sorry to sound so dumb.

Answer 1

I think you might be looking for something like comet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_%28programming%29

Comet is sort of the opposite of polling, where you have a long-standing HTTP connection, which allows you to push data to the client from the server. Unfortunately, I don't have much to lend other than a link like the one above, but hopefully it will start you in the right direction.

Some more links that might be helpful:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/comet

http://ajaxpatterns.org/HTTP_Streaming