C++ WebSocket Server Workshop

The completed source code for this workshop can be found here: https://github.com/adamrehn/websocket-server-demo/.

This workshop demonstrates how to create a C++ server that communicates with a web client using the WebSocket protocol. The main skills covered are:

• Using the server functionality of the WebSocket++ WebSocket library
• Basic JSON serialisation using the JsonCpp library
• Using the asio::io_service event loop functionality from Boost.Asio
• Implementing the Observer Pattern using both std::bind and C++11 lambdas as callbacks
• Basic multi-threading using C++11 threads
• Communicating between event loops on multiple threads

The workshop is broken down into a series of parts:

• Part 1: The basic client and server
• Part 2: Adding JSON support for structured messages
• Part 3: Initiating messages from the server
• Part 4: Multiple threads and event loops
• Part 5: Avoiding race conditions