HTML

1. 9 Communication
   1. 9.1 The MessageEvent interfaces
   2. 9.2 Server-sent events
      1. 9.2.1 Introduction
      2. 9.2.2 The EventSource interface
      3. 9.2.3 Processing model
      4. 9.2.4 Parsing an event stream
      5. 9.2.5 Interpreting an event stream
      6. 9.2.6 Authoring notes
      7. 9.2.7 Connectionless push and other features
      8. 9.2.8 Garbage collection
      9. 9.2.9 Implementation advice
   3. 9.3 Web sockets
      1. 9.3.1 Introduction
      2. 9.3.2 The WebSocket interface
      3. 9.3.3 Feedback from the protocol
      4. 9.3.4 Ping and Pong frames
      5. 9.3.5 The CloseEvent interfaces
      6. 9.3.6 Garbage collection
   4. 9.4 Cross-document messaging
      1. 9.4.1 Introduction
      2. 9.4.2 Security
         1. 9.4.2.1 Authors
         2. 9.4.2.2 User agents
      3. 9.4.3 Posting messages
   5. 9.5 Channel messaging
      1. 9.5.1 Introduction
         1. 9.5.1.1 Examples
         2. 9.5.1.2 Ports as the basis of an object-capability model on the Web
         3. 9.5.1.3 Ports as the basis of abstracting out service implementations
      2. 9.5.2 Message channels
      3. 9.5.3 Message ports
      4. 9.5.4 Broadcasting to many ports
      5. 9.5.5 Ports and garbage collection
   6. 9.6 Broadcasting to other browsing contexts

9 Communication

9.1 The MessageEvent interfaces

Messages in server-sent events, Web sockets, cross-document messaging, channel messaging, and broadcast channels use the MessageEvent interface for their message events:

[Constructor(DOMString type, optional MessageEventInit eventInitDict), Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface MessageEvent : Event {
  readonly attribute any data;
  readonly attribute USVString origin;
  readonly attribute DOMString lastEventId;
  readonly attribute MessageEventSource? source;
  readonly attribute FrozenArray<MessagePort> ports;

  void initMessageEvent(DOMString type, optional boolean bubbles = false, optional boolean cancelable = false, optional any data = null, optional USVString origin = "", optional DOMString lastEventId = "", optional MessageEventSource? source = null, optional sequence<MessagePort> ports = []);
};

dictionary MessageEventInit : EventInit {
  any data = null;
  USVString origin = "";
  DOMString lastEventId = "";
  MessageEventSource? source = null;
  sequence<MessagePort> ports = [];
};

typedef (WindowProxy or MessagePort or ServiceWorker) MessageEventSource;

event . data

Returns the data of the message.

event . origin

Returns the origin of the message, for server-sent events and cross-document messaging.

event . lastEventId

Returns the last event ID string, for server-sent events.

event . source

Returns the WindowProxy of the source window, for cross-document messaging, and the MessagePort being attached, in the connect event fired at SharedWorkerGlobalScope objects.

event . ports

Returns the MessagePort array sent with the message, for cross-document messaging and channel messaging.

The data attribute must return the value it was initialized to. It represents the message being sent.

The origin attribute must return the value it was initialized to. It represents, in server-sent events and cross-document messaging, the origin of the document that sent the message (typically the scheme, hostname, and port of the document, but not its path or fragment).

The lastEventId attribute must return the value it was initialized to. It represents, in server-sent events, the last event ID string of the event source.

The source attribute must return the value it was initialized to. It represents, in cross-document messaging, the WindowProxy of the browsing context of the Window object from which the message came; and in the connect events used by shared workers, the newly connecting MessagePort.

The ports attribute must return the value it was initialized to. It represents, in cross-document messaging and channel messaging, the MessagePort array being sent.

The initMessageEvent() method must initialize the event in a manner analogous to the similarly-named initEvent() method. [DOM]

Various APIs (e.g., WebSocket, EventSource) use the MessageEvent interface for their message event without using the MessagePort API.

9.2 Server-sent events

9.2.1 Introduction

This section is non-normative.

To enable servers to push data to Web pages over HTTP or using dedicated server-push protocols, this specification introduces the EventSource interface.

Using this API consists of creating an EventSource object and registering an event listener.

var source = new EventSource('updates.cgi');
source.onmessage = function (event) {
  alert(event.data);
};

On the server-side, the script ("updates.cgi" in this case) sends messages in the following form, with the text/event-stream MIME type:

data: This is the first message.

data: This is the second message, it
data: has two lines.

data: This is the third message.

Authors can separate events by using different event types. Here is a stream that has two event types, "add" and "remove":

event: add
data: 73857293

event: remove
data: 2153

event: add
data: 113411

The script to handle such a stream would look like this (where addHandler and removeHandler are functions that take one argument, the event):

var source = new EventSource('updates.cgi');
source.addEventListener('add', addHandler, false);
source.addEventListener('remove', removeHandler, false);

The default event type is "message".

Event streams are always decoded as UTF-8. There is no way to specify another character encoding.

Event stream requests can be redirected using HTTP 301 and 307 redirects as with normal HTTP requests. Clients will reconnect if the connection is closed; a client can be told to stop reconnecting using the HTTP 204 No Content response code.

Using this API rather than emulating it using XMLHttpRequest or an iframe allows the user agent to make better use of network resources in cases where the user agent implementor and the network operator are able to coordinate in advance. Amongst other benefits, this can result in significant savings in battery life on portable devices. This is discussed further in the section below on connectionless push.

9.2.2 The EventSource interface

[Constructor(USVString url, optional EventSourceInit eventSourceInitDict), Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface EventSource : EventTarget {
  readonly attribute USVString url;
  readonly attribute boolean withCredentials;

  // ready state
  const unsigned short CONNECTING = 0;
  const unsigned short OPEN = 1;
  const unsigned short CLOSED = 2;
  readonly attribute unsigned short readyState;

  // networking
  attribute EventHandler onopen;
  attribute EventHandler onmessage;
  attribute EventHandler onerror;
  void close();
};

dictionary EventSourceInit {
  boolean withCredentials = false;
};

Each EventSource object has the following associated with it:

• A url (a URL record). Set during construction.

• A request. This must initially be null.

• A reconnection time, in milliseconds. This must initially be a user-agent-defined value, probably in the region of a few seconds.

• A last event ID string. This must initially be the empty string.

Apart from url these are not currently exposed on the EventSource object.

The EventSource(url, eventSourceInitDict) constructor, when invoked, must run these steps:

1. Let ev be a new EventSource object.

2. Let settings be ev's relevant settings object.

3. Let urlRecord be the result of parsing url with settings's API base URL and settings's API URL character encoding.

4. If urlRecord is failure, then throw a "SyntaxError" DOMException.

5. Set ev's url to urlRecord.

6. Let corsAttributeState be Anonymous.

7. If the value of eventSourceInitDict's withCredentials member is true, then set corsAttributeState to Use Credentials and set ev's withCredentials attribute to true.

8. Let request be the result of creating a potential-CORS request given urlRecord, the empty string, and corsAttributeState, and with the same-origin fallback flag set.

9. Set request's client to settings.

10. User agents may set `Accept`/`text/event-stream` in request's header list.

11. Set request's cache mode to "no-store".

12. Set ev's request to request.

13. Return ev, but continue these steps in parallel.

14. Fetch request.

The url attribute's getter must return the serialization of this EventSource object's url.

The withCredentials attribute must return the value to which it was last initialized. When the object is created, it must be initialized to false.

The readyState attribute represents the state of the connection. It can have the following values:

CONNECTING (numeric value 0)

The connection has not yet been established, or it was closed and the user agent is reconnecting.

OPEN (numeric value 1)

The user agent has an open connection and is dispatching events as it receives them.

CLOSED (numeric value 2)

The connection is not open, and the user agent is not trying to reconnect. Either there was a fatal error or the close() method was invoked.

When the object is created its readyState must be set to CONNECTING (0). The rules given below for handling the connection define when the value changes.

The close() method must abort any instances of the fetch algorithm started for this EventSource object, and must set the readyState attribute to CLOSED.

The following are the event handlers (and their corresponding event handler event types) that must be supported, as event handler IDL attributes, by all objects implementing the EventSource interface:

9.2.3 Processing model

The resource indicated in the argument to the EventSource constructor is fetched when the constructor is run.

As data is received, the tasks queued by the networking task source to handle the data must act as follows.

HTTP 200 OK responses with a `Content-Type` header specifying the type `text/event-stream`, ignoring any MIME type parameters, must be processed line by line as described below.

When a successful response with a supported MIME type is received, such that the user agent begins parsing the contents of the stream, the user agent must announce the connection.

The task that the networking task source places on the task queue once fetching for such a resource (with the correct MIME type) has completed must cause the user agent to reestablish the connection in parallel. This applies whether the connection is closed gracefully or unexpectedly (but does not apply when fetching is canceled by the user agent, e.g., in response to window.stop(), since in those cases the final task is actually discarded). It doesn't apply for the error conditions listed below except where explicitly specified.

HTTP 200 OK responses that have a Content-Type specifying an unsupported type, or that have no Content-Type at all, must cause the user agent to fail the connection.

Network errors that prevents the connection from being established in the first place (e.g. DNS errors), should cause the user agent to reestablish the connection in parallel, unless the user agent knows that to be futile, in which case the user agent may fail the connection.

Any other HTTP response code not listed here, as well as the cancelation of the fetch algorithm by the user agent (e.g. in response to window.stop() or the user canceling the network connection manually) must cause the user agent to fail the connection.

When a user agent is to announce the connection, the user agent must queue a task which, if the readyState attribute is set to a value other than CLOSED, sets the readyState attribute to OPEN and fires an event named open at the EventSource object.

When a user agent is to reestablish the connection, the user agent must run the following steps. These steps are run in parallel, not as part of a task. (The tasks that it queues, of course, are run like normal tasks and not themselves in parallel.)

1. Queue a task to run the following steps:

   1. If the readyState attribute is set to CLOSED, abort the task.

   2. Set the readyState attribute to CONNECTING.

   3. Fire an event named error at the EventSource object.

2. Wait a delay equal to the reconnection time of the event source.

3. Optionally, wait some more. In particular, if the previous attempt failed, then user agents might introduce an exponential backoff delay to avoid overloading a potentially already overloaded server. Alternatively, if the operating system has reported that there is no network connectivity, user agents might wait for the operating system to announce that the network connection has returned before retrying.

4. Wait until the aforementioned task has run, if it has not yet run.

5. Queue a task to run the following steps:

   1. If the EventSource object's readyState attribute is not set to CONNECTING, abort these steps.

   2. Let request be the EventSource object's request.

   3. If the EventSource object's last event ID string is not the empty string, set `Last-Event-ID`/last event ID string, encoded as UTF-8, in request's header list.

   4. Fetch request and process the response obtained in this fashion, if any, as described earlier in this section.

When a user agent is to fail the connection, the user agent must queue a task which, if the readyState attribute is set to a value other than CLOSED, sets the readyState attribute to CLOSED and fires an event named error at the EventSource object. Once the user agent has failed the connection, it does not attempt to reconnect!

The task source for any tasks that are queued by EventSource objects is the remote event task source.

9.2.4 Parsing an event stream

This event stream format's MIME type is text/event-stream.

The event stream format is as described by the stream production of the following ABNF, the character set for which is Unicode. [ABNF]

stream        = [ bom ] *event
event         = *( comment / field ) end-of-line
comment       = colon *any-char end-of-line
field         = 1*name-char [ colon [ space ] *any-char ] end-of-line
end-of-line   = ( cr lf / cr / lf )

; characters
lf            = %x000A ; U+000A LINE FEED (LF)
cr            = %x000D ; U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR)
space         = %x0020 ; U+0020 SPACE
colon         = %x003A ; U+003A COLON (:)
bom           = %xFEFF ; U+FEFF BYTE ORDER MARK
name-char     = %x0000-0009 / %x000B-000C / %x000E-0039 / %x003B-10FFFF
                ; a Unicode character other than U+000A LINE FEED (LF), U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR), or U+003A COLON (:)
any-char      = %x0000-0009 / %x000B-000C / %x000E-10FFFF
                ; a Unicode character other than U+000A LINE FEED (LF) or U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR)

Event streams in this format must always be encoded as UTF-8. [ENCODING]

Lines must be separated by either a U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN U+000A LINE FEED (CRLF) character pair, a single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character, or a single U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) character.

Since connections established to remote servers for such resources are expected to be long-lived, UAs should ensure that appropriate buffering is used. In particular, while line buffering with lines are defined to end with a single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character is safe, block buffering or line buffering with different expected line endings can cause delays in event dispatch.

9.2.5 Interpreting an event stream

Streams must be decoded using the UTF-8 decode algorithm.

The UTF-8 decode algorithm strips one leading UTF-8 Byte Order Mark (BOM), if any.

The stream must then be parsed by reading everything line by line, with a U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN U+000A LINE FEED (CRLF) character pair, a single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character not preceded by a U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) character, and a single U+000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) character not followed by a U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character being the ways in which a line can end.

When a stream is parsed, a data buffer, an event type buffer, and a last event ID buffer must be associated with it. They must be initialized to the empty string

Lines must be processed, in the order they are received, as follows:

If the line is empty (a blank line)

Dispatch the event, as defined below.

If the line starts with a U+003A COLON character (:)

Ignore the line.

If the line contains a U+003A COLON character (:)

Collect the characters on the line before the first U+003A COLON character (:), and let field be that string.

Collect the characters on the line after the first U+003A COLON character (:), and let value be that string. If value starts with a U+0020 SPACE character, remove it from value.

Process the field using the steps described below, using field as the field name and value as the field value.

Otherwise, the string is not empty but does not contain a U+003A COLON character (:)

Process the field using the steps described below, using the whole line as the field name, and the empty string as the field value.

Once the end of the file is reached, any pending data must be discarded. (If the file ends in the middle of an event, before the final empty line, the incomplete event is not dispatched.)

The steps to process the field given a field name and a field value depend on the field name, as given in the following list. Field names must be compared literally, with no case folding performed.

If the field name is "event"

Set the event type buffer to field value.

If the field name is "data"

Append the field value to the data buffer, then append a single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character to the data buffer.

If the field name is "id"

Set the last event ID buffer to the field value.

If the field name is "retry"

If the field value consists of only ASCII digits, then interpret the field value as an integer in base ten, and set the event stream's reconnection time to that integer. Otherwise, ignore the field.

Otherwise

The field is ignored.

When the user agent is required to dispatch the event, the user agent must process the data buffer, the event type buffer, and the last event ID buffer using steps appropriate for the user agent.

For Web browsers, the appropriate steps to dispatch the event are as follows:

1. Set the last event ID string of the event source to the value of the last event ID buffer. The buffer does not get reset, so the last event ID string of the event source remains set to this value until the next time it is set by the server.

2. If the data buffer is an empty string, set the data buffer and the event type buffer to the empty string and abort these steps.

3. If the data buffer's last character is a U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character, then remove the last character from the data buffer.

4. Let event be the result of creating an event using MessageEvent, in the relevant Realm of the EventSource object.

5. Initialize event's type attribute to message, its data attribute to data, its origin attribute to the Unicode serialization of the origin of the event stream's final URL (i.e. the URL after redirects), and its lastEventId attribute to the last event ID string of the event source.

6. If the event type buffer has a value other than the empty string, change the type of the newly created event to equal the value of the event type buffer.

7. Set the data buffer and the event type buffer to the empty string.

8. Queue a task which, if the readyState attribute is set to a value other than CLOSED, dispatches the newly created event at the EventSource object.

If an event doesn't have an "id" field, but an earlier event did set the event source's last event ID string, then the event's lastEventId field will be set to the value of whatever the last seen "id" field was.

For other user agents, the appropriate steps to dispatch the event are implementation dependent, but at a minimum they must set the data and event type buffers to the empty string before returning.

data: YHOO
data: +2
data: 10

var stocks = new EventSource("https://stocks.example.com/ticker.php");
stocks.onmessage = function (event) {
  var data = event.data.split('\n');
  updateStocks(data[0], data[1], data[2]);
};

function updateStocks(symbol, delta, value) { ... }

: test stream

data: first event
id: 1

data:second event
id

data:  third event

data

data
data

data:

data:test

data: test

9.2.6 Authoring notes

Legacy proxy servers are known to, in certain cases, drop HTTP connections after a short timeout. To protect against such proxy servers, authors can include a comment line (one starting with a ':' character) every 15 seconds or so.

Authors wishing to relate event source connections to each other or to specific documents previously served might find that relying on IP addresses doesn't work, as individual clients can have multiple IP addresses (due to having multiple proxy servers) and individual IP addresses can have multiple clients (due to sharing a proxy server). It is better to include a unique identifier in the document when it is served and then pass that identifier as part of the URL when the connection is established.

Authors are also cautioned that HTTP chunking can have unexpected negative effects on the reliability of this protocol, in particular if the chunking is done by a different layer unaware of the timing requirements. If this is a problem, chunking can be disabled for serving event streams.

Clients that support HTTP's per-server connection limitation might run into trouble when opening multiple pages from a site if each page has an EventSource to the same domain. Authors can avoid this using the relatively complex mechanism of using unique domain names per connection, or by allowing the user to enable or disable the EventSource functionality on a per-page basis, or by sharing a single EventSource object using a shared worker.

9.2.7 Connectionless push and other features

User agents running in controlled environments, e.g. browsers on mobile handsets tied to specific carriers, may offload the management of the connection to a proxy on the network. In such a situation, the user agent for the purposes of conformance is considered to include both the handset software and the network proxy.

This can reduce the total data usage, and can therefore result in considerable power savings.

As well as implementing the existing API and text/event-stream wire format as defined by this specification and in more distributed ways as described above, formats of event framing defined by other applicable specifications may be supported. This specification does not define how they are to be parsed or processed.

9.2.8 Garbage collection

While an EventSource object's readyState is CONNECTING, and the object has one or more event listeners registered for open, message or error events, there must be a strong reference from the Window or WorkerGlobalScope object that the EventSource object's constructor was invoked from to the EventSource object itself.

While an EventSource object's readyState is OPEN, and the object has one or more event listeners registered for message or error events, there must be a strong reference from the Window or WorkerGlobalScope object that the EventSource object's constructor was invoked from to the EventSource object itself.

While there is a task queued by an EventSource object on the remote event task source, there must be a strong reference from the Window or WorkerGlobalScope object that the EventSource object's constructor was invoked from to that EventSource object.

If a user agent is to forcibly close an EventSource object (this happens when a Document object goes away permanently), the user agent must abort any instances of the fetch algorithm started for this EventSource object, and must set the readyState attribute to CLOSED.

If an EventSource object is garbage collected while its connection is still open, the user agent must abort any instance of the fetch algorithm opened by this EventSource.

9.2.9 Implementation advice

This section is non-normative.

User agents are strongly urged to provide detailed diagnostic information about EventSource objects and their related network connections in their development consoles, to aid authors in debugging code using this API.

For example, a user agent could have a panel displaying all the EventSource objects a page has created, each listing the constructor's arguments, whether there was a network error, what the CORS status of the connection is and what headers were sent by the client and received from the server to lead to that status, the messages that were received and how they were parsed, and so forth.

Implementations are especially encouraged to report detailed information to their development consoles whenever an error event is fired, since little to no information can be made available in the events themselves.

9.3 Web sockets

9.3.1 Introduction

This section is non-normative.

To enable Web applications to maintain bidirectional communications with server-side processes, this specification introduces the WebSocket interface.

This interface does not allow for raw access to the underlying network. For example, this interface could not be used to implement an IRC client without proxying messages through a custom server.

9.3.2 The WebSocket interface

enum BinaryType { "blob", "arraybuffer" };
[Constructor(USVString url, optional (DOMString or sequence<DOMString>) protocols = []), Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface WebSocket : EventTarget {
  readonly attribute USVString url;

  // ready state
  const unsigned short CONNECTING = 0;
  const unsigned short OPEN = 1;
  const unsigned short CLOSING = 2;
  const unsigned short CLOSED = 3;
  readonly attribute unsigned short readyState;
  readonly attribute unsigned long long bufferedAmount;

  // networking
  attribute EventHandler onopen;
  attribute EventHandler onerror;
  attribute EventHandler onclose;
  readonly attribute DOMString extensions;
  readonly attribute DOMString protocol;
  void close([Clamp] optional unsigned short code, optional USVString reason);

  // messaging
  attribute EventHandler onmessage;
  attribute BinaryType binaryType;
  void send(USVString data);
  void send(Blob data);
  void send(ArrayBuffer data);
  void send(ArrayBufferView data);
};

Each WebSocket object has an associated url (a URL record).

The WebSocket(url, protocols) constructor takes one or two arguments. The first argument, url, specifies the URL to which to connect. The second, protocols, if present, is either a string or an array of strings. If it is a string, it is equivalent to an array consisting of just that string; if it is omitted, it is equivalent to the empty array. Each string in the array is a subprotocol name. The connection will only be established if the server reports that it has selected one of these subprotocols. The subprotocol names must all be strings that match the requirements for elements that comprise the value of Sec-WebSocket-Protocol fields as defined by the WebSocket protocol specification. [WSP]

The WebSocket(url, protocols) constructor, when invoked, must run these steps:

1. Let urlRecord be the result of applying the URL parser to url.

2. If urlRecord is failure, then throw a "SyntaxError" DOMException.

3. If urlRecord's scheme is not "ws" or "wss", then throw a "SyntaxError" DOMException.

4. If urlRecord's fragment is non-null, then throw a "SyntaxError" DOMException.

5. If protocols is a string, set protocols to a sequence consisting of just that string.

6. If any of the values in protocols occur more than once or otherwise fail to match the requirements for elements that comprise the value of Sec-WebSocket-Protocol fields as defined by the WebSocket protocol specification, then throw a "SyntaxError" DOMException and abort these steps. [WSP]

7. Return a new WebSocket object whose url is urlRecord, but continue these steps in parallel.

8. Establish a WebSocket connection given urlRecord, protocols, and the entry settings object. [FETCH]

   If the establish a WebSocket connection algorithm fails, it triggers the fail the WebSocket connection algorithm, which then invokes the close the WebSocket connection algorithm, which then establishes that the WebSocket connection is closed, which fires the close event as described below.

The url attribute's getter must return this WebSocket object's url, serialized.

The readyState attribute represents the state of the connection. It can have the following values:

CONNECTING (numeric value 0)

The connection has not yet been established.

OPEN (numeric value 1)

The WebSocket connection is established and communication is possible.

CLOSING (numeric value 2)

The connection is going through the closing handshake, or the close() method has been invoked.

CLOSED (numeric value 3)

The connection has been closed or could not be opened.

When the object is created its readyState must be set to CONNECTING (0).

The extensions attribute must initially return the empty string. After the WebSocket connection is established, its value might change, as defined below.

The extensions attribute returns the extensions selected by the server, if any.

The protocol attribute must initially return the empty string. After the WebSocket connection is established, its value might change, as defined below.

The protocol attribute returns the subprotocol selected by the server, if any. It can be used in conjunction with the array form of the constructor's second argument to perform subprotocol negotiation.

The close(code, reason) method, when invoked, must run these steps:

1. If code is present, but is neither an integer equal to 1000 nor an integer in the range 3000 to 4999, inclusive, throw an "InvalidAccessError" DOMException.

2. If reason is present, then run these substeps:

   1. Let reasonBytes be the result of encoding reason.

   2. If reasonBytes is longer than 123 bytes, then throw a "SyntaxError" DOMException.

3. Run the first matching steps from the following list:

   If the readyState attribute is in the CLOSING (2) or CLOSED (3) state

   Do nothing.

   The connection is already closing or is already closed. If it has not already, a close event will eventually fire as described below.

   If the WebSocket connection is not yet established [WSP]

   Fail the WebSocket connection and set the readyState attribute's value to CLOSING (2). [WSP]

   The fail the WebSocket connection algorithm invokes the close the WebSocket connection algorithm, which then establishes that the WebSocket connection is closed, which fires the close event as described below.

   If the WebSocket closing handshake has not yet been started [WSP]

   Start the WebSocket closing handshake and set the readyState attribute's value to CLOSING (2). [WSP]

   If neither code nor reason is present, the WebSocket Close message must not have a body.

   The WebSocket Protocol specification erroneously states that the status code is required for the start the WebSocket closing handshake algorithm.

   If code is present, then the status code to use in the WebSocket Close message must be the integer given by close. [WSP]

   If reason is also present, then reasonBytes must be provided in the Close message after the status code. [WSP]

   The start the WebSocket closing handshake algorithm eventually invokes the close the WebSocket connection algorithm, which then establishes that the WebSocket connection is closed, which fires the close event as described below.

   Otherwise

   Set the readyState attribute's value to CLOSING (2).

   The WebSocket closing handshake is started, and will eventually invoke the close the WebSocket connection algorithm, which will establish that the WebSocket connection is closed, and thus the close event will fire, as described below.

The close() method does not discard previously sent messages before starting the WebSocket closing handshake — even if, in practice, the user agent is still busy sending those messages, the handshake will only start after the messages are sent.

The bufferedAmount attribute must return the number of bytes of application data (UTF-8 text and binary data) that have been queued using send() but that, as of the last time the event loop reached step 1, had not yet been transmitted to the network. (This thus includes any text sent during the execution of the current task, regardless of whether the user agent is able to transmit text in the background in parallel with script execution.) This does not include framing overhead incurred by the protocol, or buffering done by the operating system or network hardware. If the connection is closed, this attribute's value will only increase with each call to the send() method (the number does not reset to zero once the connection closes).

var socket = new WebSocket('ws://game.example.com:12010/updates');
socket.onopen = function () {
  setInterval(function() {
    if (socket.bufferedAmount == 0)
      socket.send(getUpdateData());
  }, 50);
};

When a WebSocket object is created, its binaryType IDL attribute must be set to the string "blob". On getting, it must return the last value it was set to. On setting, the user agent must set the IDL attribute to the new value.

This attribute allows authors to control how binary data is exposed to scripts. By setting the attribute to "blob", binary data is returned in Blob form; by setting it to "arraybuffer", it is returned in ArrayBuffer form. User agents can use this as a hint for how to handle incoming binary data: if the attribute is set to "blob", it is safe to spool it to disk, and if it is set to "arraybuffer", it is likely more efficient to keep the data in memory. Naturally, user agents are encouraged to use more subtle heuristics to decide whether to keep incoming data in memory or not, e.g. based on how big the data is or how common it is for a script to change the attribute at the last minute. This latter aspect is important in particular because it is quite possible for the attribute to be changed after the user agent has received the data but before the user agent has fired the event for it.

The send(data) method transmits data using the connection. If the readyState attribute is CONNECTING, it must throw an "InvalidStateError" DOMException. Otherwise, the user agent must run the appropriate set of steps from the following list:

If the argument is a string

If the WebSocket connection is established and the WebSocket closing handshake has not yet started, then the user agent must send a WebSocket Message comprised of the data argument using a text frame opcode; if the data cannot be sent, e.g. because it would need to be buffered but the buffer is full, the user agent must flag the WebSocket as full and then close the WebSocket connection. Any invocation of this method with a string argument that does not throw an exception must increase the bufferedAmount attribute by the number of bytes needed to express the argument as UTF-8. [UNICODE] [ENCODING] [WSP]

If the argument is a Blob object

If the WebSocket connection is established, and the WebSocket closing handshake has not yet started, then the user agent must send a WebSocket Message comprised of data using a binary frame opcode; if the data cannot be sent, e.g. because it would need to be buffered but the buffer is full, the user agent must flag the WebSocket as full and then close the WebSocket connection. The data to be sent is the raw data represented by the Blob object. Any invocation of this method with a Blob argument that does not throw an exception must increase the bufferedAmount attribute by the size of the Blob object's raw data, in bytes. [WSP] [FILEAPI]

If the argument is an ArrayBuffer object

If the WebSocket connection is established, and the WebSocket closing handshake has not yet started, then the user agent must send a WebSocket Message comprised of data using a binary frame opcode; if the data cannot be sent, e.g. because it would need to be buffered but the buffer is full, the user agent must flag the WebSocket as full and then close the WebSocket connection. The data to be sent is the data stored in the buffer described by the ArrayBuffer object. Any invocation of this method with an ArrayBuffer argument that does not throw an exception must increase the bufferedAmount attribute by the length of the ArrayBuffer in bytes. [WSP]

If the argument is an object that matches the ArrayBufferView type definition

If the WebSocket connection is established, and the WebSocket closing handshake has not yet started, then the user agent must send a WebSocket Message comprised of data using a binary frame opcode; if the data cannot be sent, e.g. because it would need to be buffered but the buffer is full, the user agent must flag the WebSocket as full and then close the WebSocket connection. The data to be sent is the data stored in the section of the buffer described by the ArrayBuffer object that data references. Any invocation of this method with this kind of argument that does not throw an exception must increase the bufferedAmount attribute by the length of data's buffer in bytes. [WSP]

The following are the event handlers (and their corresponding event handler event types) that must be supported, as event handler IDL attributes, by all objects implementing the WebSocket interface:

9.3.3 Feedback from the protocol

When the WebSocket connection is established, the user agent must queue a task to run these steps:

1. Change the readyState attribute's value to OPEN (1).

2. Change the extensions attribute's value to the extensions in use, if is not the null value. [WSP]

3. Change the protocol attribute's value to the subprotocol in use, if is not the null value. [WSP]

4. Fire an event named open at the WebSocket object.

Since the algorithm above is queued as a task, there is no race condition between the WebSocket connection being established and the script setting up an event listener for the open event.

When a WebSocket message has been received with type type and data data, the user agent must queue a task to follow these steps: [WSP]

1. If the readyState attribute's value is not OPEN (1), then abort these steps.

2. Let dataForEvent be determined by switching on type and binaryType:

   type indicates that the data is Text

   a new DOMString containing data

   type indicates that the data is Binary and binaryType is "blob"

   a new Blob object, created in the relevant Realm of the WebSocket object, that represents data as its raw data [FILEAPI]

   type indicates that the data is Binary and binaryType is "arraybuffer"

   a new ArrayBuffer object, created in the relevant Realm of the WebSocket object, whose contents are data

3. Fire an event named message at the WebSocket object, using MessageEvent, with the origin attribute initialized to the Unicode serialization of the WebSocket object's url's origin, and the data attribute initialized to dataForEvent.

User agents are encouraged to check if they can perform the above steps efficiently before they run the task, picking tasks from other task queues while they prepare the buffers if not. For example, if the binaryType attribute was set to "blob" when the data arrived, and the user agent spooled all the data to disk, but just before running the above task for this particular message the script switched binaryType to "arraybuffer", the user agent would want to page the data back to RAM before running this task so as to avoid stalling the main thread while it created the ArrayBuffer object.

mysocket.onmessage = function (event) {
  if (event.data == 'on') {
    turnLampOn();
  } else if (event.data == 'off') {
    turnLampOff();
  }
};

When the WebSocket closing handshake is started, the user agent must queue a task to change the readyState attribute's value to CLOSING (2). (If the close() method was called, the readyState attribute's value will already be set to CLOSING (2) when this task runs.) [WSP]

When the WebSocket connection is closed, possibly cleanly, the user agent must queue a task to run the following substeps:

1. Change the readyState attribute's value to CLOSED (3).

2. If the user agent was required to fail the WebSocket connection, or if the the WebSocket connection was closed after being flagged as full, fire an event named error at the WebSocket object. [WSP]

3. Fire an event named close at the WebSocket object, using CloseEvent, with the wasClean attribute initialized to true if the connection closed cleanly and false otherwise, the code attribute initialized to the WebSocket connection close code, and the reason attribute initialized to the result of applying UTF-8 decode without BOM to the WebSocket connection close reason. [WSP]

The task source for all tasks queued in this section is the WebSocket task source.

9.3.4 Ping and Pong frames

The WebSocket protocol specification defines Ping and Pong frames that can be used for keep-alive, heart-beats, network status probing, latency instrumentation, and so forth. These are not currently exposed in the API.

User agents may send ping and unsolicited pong frames as desired, for example in an attempt to maintain local network NAT mappings, to detect failed connections, or to display latency metrics to the user. User agents must not use pings or unsolicited pongs to aid the server; it is assumed that servers will solicit pongs whenever appropriate for the server's needs.

9.3.5 The CloseEvent interfaces

[Constructor(DOMString type, optional CloseEventInit eventInitDict), Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface CloseEvent : Event {
  readonly attribute boolean wasClean;
  readonly attribute unsigned short code;
  readonly attribute USVString reason;
};

dictionary CloseEventInit : EventInit {
  boolean wasClean = false;
  unsigned short code = 0;
  USVString reason = "";
};

The wasClean attribute must return the value it was initialized to. It represents whether the connection closed cleanly or not.

The code attribute must return the value it was initialized to. It represents the WebSocket connection close code provided by the server.

The reason attribute must return the value it was initialized to. It represents the WebSocket connection close reason provided by the server.

9.3.6 Garbage collection

A WebSocket object whose readyState attribute's value was set to CONNECTING (0) as of the last time the event loop reached step 1 must not be garbage collected if there are any event listeners registered for open events, message events, error events, or close events.

A WebSocket object whose readyState attribute's value was set to OPEN (1) as of the last time the event loop reached step 1 must not be garbage collected if there are any event listeners registered for message events, error, or close events.

A WebSocket object whose readyState attribute's value was set to CLOSING (2) as of the last time the event loop reached step 1 must not be garbage collected if there are any event listeners registered for error or close events.

A WebSocket object with an established connection that has data queued to be transmitted to the network must not be garbage collected. [WSP]

If a WebSocket object is garbage collected while its connection is still open, the user agent must start the WebSocket closing handshake, with no status code for the Close message. [WSP]

If a user agent is to make disappear a WebSocket object (this happens when a Document object goes away), the user agent must follow the first appropriate set of steps from the following list:

If the WebSocket connection is not yet established [WSP]

Fail the WebSocket connection. [WSP]

If the WebSocket closing handshake has not yet been started [WSP]

Start the WebSocket closing handshake, with the status code to use in the WebSocket Close message being 1001. [WSP]

Otherwise

Do nothing.

9.4 Cross-document messaging

Web browsers, for security and privacy reasons, prevent documents in different domains from affecting each other; that is, cross-site scripting is disallowed.

While this is an important security feature, it prevents pages from different domains from communicating even when those pages are not hostile. This section introduces a messaging system that allows documents to communicate with each other regardless of their source domain, in a way designed to not enable cross-site scripting attacks.

This API has some privacy implications that might not be immediately obvious.

The task source for the tasks in cross-document messaging is the posted message task source.

9.4.1 Introduction

This section is non-normative.

var o = document.getElementsByTagName('iframe')[0];
o.contentWindow.postMessage('Hello world', 'https://b.example.org/');

window.addEventListener('message', receiver, false);
function receiver(e) {
  if (e.origin == 'https://example.com') {
    if (e.data == 'Hello world') {
      e.source.postMessage('Hello', e.origin);
    } else {
      alert(e.data);
    }
  }
}

9.4.2 Security

9.4.2.1 Authors

Use of this API requires extra care to protect users from hostile entities abusing a site for their own purposes.

Authors should check the origin attribute to ensure that messages are only accepted from domains that they expect to receive messages from. Otherwise, bugs in the author's message handling code could be exploited by hostile sites.

Furthermore, even after checking the origin attribute, authors should also check that the data in question is of the expected format. Otherwise, if the source of the event has been attacked using a cross-site scripting flaw, further unchecked processing of information sent using the postMessage() method could result in the attack being propagated into the receiver.

Authors should not use the wildcard keyword (*) in the targetOrigin argument in messages that contain any confidential information, as otherwise there is no way to guarantee that the message is only delivered to the recipient to which it was intended.

Authors who accept messages from any origin are encouraged to consider the risks of a denial-of-service attack. An attacker could send a high volume of messages; if the receiving page performs expensive computation or causes network traffic to be sent for each such message, the attacker's message could be multiplied into a denial-of-service attack. Authors are encouraged to employ rate limiting (only accepting a certain number of messages per minute) to make such attacks impractical.

9.4.2.2 User agents

The integrity of this API is based on the inability for scripts of one origin to post arbitrary events (using dispatchEvent() or otherwise) to objects in other origins (those that are not the same).

Implementors are urged to take extra care in the implementation of this feature. It allows authors to transmit information from one domain to another domain, which is normally disallowed for security reasons. It also requires that UAs be careful to allow access to certain properties but not others.

User agents are also encouraged to consider rate-limiting message traffic between different origins, to protect naïve sites from denial-of-service attacks.

9.4.3 Posting messages

window . postMessage(message, targetOrigin [, transfer ] )

Posts a message to the given window. Messages can be structured objects, e.g. nested objects and arrays, can contain JavaScript values (strings, numbers, Date objects, etc), and can contain certain data objects such as File Blob, FileList, and ArrayBuffer objects.

Objects listed in transfer are transferred, not just cloned, meaning that they are no longer usable on the sending side.

If the origin of the target window doesn't match the given origin, the message is discarded, to avoid information leakage. To send the message to the target regardless of origin, set the target origin to "*". To restrict the message to same-origin targets only, without needing to explicitly state the origin, set the target origin to "/".

Throws a "DataCloneError" DOMException if transfer array contains duplicate objects or if message could not be cloned.

When posting a message to a Window of a browsing context that has just been navigated to a new Document is likely to result in the message not receiving its intended recipient: the scripts in the target browsing context have to have had time to set up listeners for the messages. Thus, for instance, in situations where a message is to be sent to the Window of newly created child iframe, authors are advised to have the child Document post a message to their parent announcing their readiness to receive messages, and for the parent to wait for this message before beginning posting messages.

The postMessage(message, targetOrigin, transfer) method, when invoked on a Window object must run the following steps:

1. Let targetWindow be this Window object.

2. Let targetRealm be targetWindow's Realm.

3. Let incumbentSettings be the incumbent settings object.

4. If targetOrigin is a single U+002F SOLIDUS character (/), then set targetOrigin to incumbentSettings's origin.

5. Otherwise, if targetOrigin is not a single U+002A ASTERISK character (*), then:

   1. Let parsedURL be the result of running the URL parser on targetOrigin.

   2. If parsedURL is failure, then throw a "SyntaxError" DOMException.

   3. Set targetOrigin to parsedURL's origin.

6. Let cloneRecord be StructuredCloneWithTransfer(message, transfer, targetRealm). Rethrow any exceptions.

7. Let messageClone be cloneRecord.[[Clone]].

8. Let newPorts be a new frozen array consisting of all MessagePort objects in cloneRecord.[[TransferList]], if any, maintaining their relative order.

9. Return, but continue running these steps in in parallel.

10. If the targetOrigin argument is not a single literal U+002A ASTERISK character (*) and targetWindow's associated Document's origin is not same origin with targetOrigin, then abort these steps.

11. Queue a task on the posted message task source to fire an event named message at targetWindow, using MessageEvent, with the data attribute initialized to messageClone, the origin attribute initialized to the Unicode serialization of incumbentSettings's origin, the source attribute initialized to the WindowProxy object's corresponding incumbentSettings's global object (a Window object), and the ports attribute initialized to newPorts.

9.5 Channel messaging

9.5.1 Introduction

This section is non-normative.

To enable independent pieces of code (e.g. running in different browsing contexts) to communicate directly, authors can use channel messaging.

Communication channels in this mechanism are implemented as two-ways pipes, with a port at each end. Messages sent in one port are delivered at the other port, and vice-versa. Messages are delivered as DOM events, without interrupting or blocking running tasks.

To create a connection (two "entangled" ports), the MessageChannel() constructor is called:

var channel = new MessageChannel();

One of the ports is kept as the local port, and the other port is sent to the remote code, e.g. using postMessage():

otherWindow.postMessage('hello', 'https://example.com', [channel.port2]);

To send messages, the postMessage() method on the port is used:

channel.port1.postMessage('hello');

To receive messages, one listens to message events:

channel.port1.onmessage = handleMessage;
function handleMessage(event) {
  // message is in event.data
  // ...
}

Data sent on a port can be structured data; for example here an array of strings is passed on a MessagePort:

port1.postMessage(['hello', 'world']);

9.5.1.1 Examples

This section is non-normative.

<script src="contacts.js"></script> <!-- exposes a contacts object -->
<script src="compose-mail.js"></script> <!-- exposes a composer object -->
<script>
 var channel = new MessageChannel();
 composer.addContactsProvider(channel.port1);
 contacts.registerConsumer(channel.port2);
</script>

function addContactsProvider(port) {
  port.onmessage = function (event) {
    switch (event.data.messageType) {
      'search-result': handleSearchResult(event.data.results); break;
      'search-done': handleSearchDone(); break;
      'search-error': handleSearchError(event.data.message); break;
      // ...
    }
  };
};

function addContactsProvider(port) {
  port.addEventListener('message', function (event) {
    if (event.data.messageType == 'search-result')
      handleSearchResult(event.data.results);
  });
  port.addEventListener('message', function (event) {
    if (event.data.messageType == 'search-done')
      handleSearchDone();
  });
  port.addEventListener('message', function (event) {
    if (event.data.messageType == 'search-error')
      handleSearchError(event.data.message);
  });
  // ...
  port.start();
};

9.5.1.2 Ports as the basis of an object-capability model on the Web

This section is non-normative.

Ports can be viewed as a way to expose limited capabilities (in the object-capability model sense) to other actors in the system. This can either be a weak capability system, where the ports are merely used as a convenient model within a particular origin, or as a strong capability model, where they are provided by one origin provider as the only mechanism by which another origin consumer can effect change in or obtain information from provider.

For example, consider a situation in which a social Web site embeds in one iframe the user's e-mail contacts provider (an address book site, from a second origin), and in a second iframe a game (from a third origin). The outer social site and the game in the second iframe cannot access anything inside the first iframe; together they can only:

• Navigate the iframe to a new URL, such as the same URL but with a different fragment, causing the Window in the iframe to receive a hashchange event.
• Resize the iframe, causing the Window in the iframe to receive a resize event.
• Send a message event to the Window in the iframe using the window.postMessage() API.

The contacts provider can use these methods, most particularly the third one, to provide an API that can be accessed by other origins to manipulate the user's address book. For example, it could respond to a message "add-contact Guillaume Tell <tell@pomme.example.net>" by adding the given person and e-mail address to the user's address book.

To avoid any site on the Web being able to manipulate the user's contacts, the contacts provider might only allow certain trusted sites, such as the social site, to do this.

Now suppose the game wanted to add a contact to the user's address book, and that the social site was willing to allow it to do so on its behalf, essentially "sharing" the trust that the contacts provider had with the social site. There are several ways it could do this; most simply, it could just proxy messages between the game site and the contacts site. However, this solution has a number of difficulties: it requires the social site to either completely trust the game site not to abuse the privilege, or it requires that the social site verify each request to make sure it's not a request that it doesn't want to allow (such as adding multiple contacts, reading the contacts, or deleting them); it also requires some additional complexity if there's ever the possibility of multiple games simultaneously trying to interact with the contacts provider.

Using message channels and MessagePort objects, however, all of these problems can go away. When the game tells the social site that it wants to add a contact, the social site can ask the contacts provider not for it to add a contact, but for the capability to add a single contact. The contacts provider then creates a pair of MessagePort objects, and sends one of them back to the social site, who forwards it on to the game. The game and the contacts provider then have a direct connection, and the contacts provider knows to only honor a single "add contact" request, nothing else. In other words, the game has been granted the capability to add a single contact.

9.5.1.3 Ports as the basis of abstracting out service implementations

This section is non-normative.

Continuing the example from the previous section, consider the contacts provider in particular. While an initial implementation might have simply used XMLHttpRequest objects in the service's iframe, an evolution of the service might instead want to use a shared worker with a single WebSocket connection.

If the initial design used MessagePort objects to grant capabilities, or even just to allow multiple simultaneous independent sessions, the service implementation can switch from the XMLHttpRequests-in-each-iframe model to the shared-WebSocket model without changing the API at all: the ports on the service provider side can all be forwarded to the shared worker without it affecting the users of the API in the slightest.

9.5.2 Message channels

[Constructor, Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface MessageChannel {
  readonly attribute MessagePort port1;
  readonly attribute MessagePort port2;
};

channel = new MessageChannel()

Returns a new MessageChannel object with two new MessagePort objects.

channel . port1

Returns the first MessagePort object.

channel . port2

Returns the second MessagePort object.

When the MessageChannel() constructor is called, it must run the following algorithm:

1. Create a new MessagePort object whose owner is the incumbent settings object, and let port1 be that object.

2. Create a new MessagePort object whose owner is the incumbent settings object, and let port2 be that object.

3. Entangle the port1 and port2 objects.

4. Instantiate a new MessageChannel object, and let channel be that object.

5. Let the port1 attribute of the channel object be port1.

6. Let the port2 attribute of the channel object be port2.

7. Return channel.

The port1 and port2 attributes must return the values they were assigned when the MessageChannel object was created.

9.5.3 Message ports

Each channel has two message ports. Data sent through one port is received by the other port, and vice versa.

[Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface MessagePort : EventTarget {
  void postMessage(any message, optional sequence<object> transfer = []);
  void start();
  void close();

  // event handlers
  attribute EventHandler onmessage;
};

port . postMessage(message [, transfer] )

Posts a message through the channel. Objects listed in transfer are transferred, not just cloned, meaning that they are no longer usable on the sending side.

Throws a "DataCloneError" DOMException if transfer array contains duplicate objects or the source or target ports, or if message could not be cloned.

port . start()

Begins dispatching messages received on the port.

port . close()

Disconnects the port, so that it is no longer active.

Each MessagePort object can be entangled with another (a symmetric relationship). Each MessagePort object also has a task source called the port message queue, initially empty. A port message queue can be enabled or disabled, and is initially disabled. Once enabled, a port can never be disabled again (though messages in the queue can get moved to another queue or removed altogether, which has much the same effect). A MessagePort also has a has been shipped flag, which must initially be false, and an owner, which is a settings object set when the object is created, as described below.

When a port's port message queue is enabled, the event loop must use it as one of its task sources. When a port's owner specifies a responsible event loop that is a browsing context event loop, all tasks queued on its port message queue must be associated with the responsible document specified by the port's owner.

If the port's owner specifies a responsible document that is fully active, but the event listeners all have scripts whose settings objects specify responsible documents that are not fully active, then the messages will be lost.

Each event loop has a task source called the unshipped port message queue. This is a virtual task source: it must act as if it contained the tasks of each port message queue of each MessagePort whose has been shipped flag is false, whose port message queue is enabled, and whose owner specifies that event loop as the responsible event loop, in the order in which they were added to their respective task source. When a task would be removed from the unshipped port message queue, it must instead be removed from its port message queue.

When a MessagePort's has been shipped flag is false, its port message queue must be ignored for the purposes of the event loop. (The unshipped port message queue is used instead.)

The has been shipped flag is set to true when a port, its twin, or the object it was cloned from, is or has been transferred. When a MessagePort's has been shipped flag is true, its port message queue acts as a first-class task source, unaffected to any unshipped port message queue.

When the user agent is to create a new MessagePort object with a particular environment settings object as its owner, it must instantiate a new MessagePort object, and let its owner be owner.

When the user agent is to entangle two MessagePort objects, it must run the following steps:

1. If one of the ports is already entangled, then disentangle it and the port that it was entangled with.

   If those two previously entangled ports were the two ports of a MessageChannel object, then that MessageChannel object no longer represents an actual channel: the two ports in that object are no longer entangled.

2. Associate the two ports to be entangled, so that they form the two parts of a new channel. (There is no MessageChannel object that represents this channel.)

   Two ports A and B that have gone through this step are now said to be entangled; one is entangled to the other, and vice versa.

   While this specification describes this process as instantaneous, implementations are more likely to implement it via message passing. As with all algorithms, the key is "merely" that the end result be indistinguishable, in a black-box sense, from the specification.

MessagePort objects are transferable objects.

Each MessagePort object's [[Transfer]](targetRealm) internal method must run these steps:

1. Set this's has been shipped flag to true.

2. Let new be a new MessagePort object in targetRealm whose owner is targetRealm's settings object.

3. Set new's has been shipped flag to true.

4. Move all the tasks that are to fire message events in the port message queue of this to the port message queue of new, if any, leaving new's port message queue in its initial disabled state, and, if new's owner specifies a responsible event loop that is a browsing context event loop, associating the moved tasks with the responsible document specified by new's owner.

5. If this is entangled with another port, then run these substeps:

   1. Let remote port be the port with which this is entangled.

   2. Set remote port's has been shipped flag to true.

   3. Entangle remote port and new. this will be disentangled by this process.

6. Set this's [[Detached]] internal slot value to true.

7. Return new. It is the clone.

The postMessage(message, transfer) method, when invoked on a MessagePort object, must run the following steps:

1. Let targetPort be the port with which this MessagePort is entangled, if any; otherwise let it be null.

2. Let doomed be false.

   It is set to true if a condition is detected that will make this message cause the port to be unusable; specifically, if the message contains target port as one of the objects being transferred. (This condition cannot necessarily be detected when the method is called.)

3. If any of the objects in transfer are this MessagePort, then throw a "DataCloneError" DOMException and abort these steps.

4. If targetPort is not null and any of the objects in transfer are targetPort, then set doomed to true, and optionally report to a developer console that the target port was posted to itself, causing the communication channel to be lost.

5. Let targetRealm be targetPort's owner's Realm, if targetPort is non-null and doomed is false; otherwise let targetRealm be some arbitrary Realm.

   targetRealm is used when cloning and transferring objects below. If there is no target port, or if the targetPort is one of the objects being transferred, the transferable objects given in the second argument, if any, are still transferred, but since they are then discarded, it doesn't matter where they are transferred to.)

6. Let cloneRecord be StructuredCloneWithTransfer(message, transfer, targetRealm). Rethrow any exceptions.

7. Let messageClone be cloneRecord.[[Clone]].

8. Let newPorts be a new frozen array consisting of all MessagePort objects in cloneRecord.[[TransferList]], if any, maintaining their relative order.

9. If there is no targetPort (i.e. if this MessagePort is not entangled), or if doomed is true, then abort these steps.

10. Let e be the result of creating an event using MessageEvent.

11. Initialize e's type attribute to message, its data attribute to messageClone, and its ports attribute to newPorts.

12. Add a task that runs the following steps to the port message queue of targetPort:

    1. Let target be the MessagePort in whose port message queue the event e now finds itself.

    2. Dispatch e at target.

The start() method must enable its port's port message queue, if it is not already enabled.

The close() method, when called on a port local port that is entangled with another port, must cause the user agent to disentangle the two ports. If the method is called on a port that is not entangled, then the method must do nothing.

The following are the event handlers (and their corresponding event handler event types) that must be supported, as event handler IDL attributes, by all objects implementing the MessagePort interface:

The first time a MessagePort object's onmessage IDL attribute is set, the port's port message queue must be enabled, as if the start() method had been called.

9.5.4 Broadcasting to many ports

This section is non-normative.

Broadcasting to many ports is in principle relatively simple: keep an array of MessagePort objects to send messages to, and iterate through the array to send a message. However, this has one rather unfortunate effect: it prevents the ports from being garbage collected, even if the other side has gone away. To avoid this problem, implement a simple protocol whereby the other side acknowledges it still exists. If it doesn't do so after a certain amount of time, assume it's gone, close the MessagePort object, and let it be garbage collected.

9.5.5 Ports and garbage collection

When a MessagePort object o is entangled, user agents must either act as if o's entangled MessagePort object has a strong reference to o, or as if the global object specified by o's owner has a strong reference to o.

Furthermore, a MessagePort object must not be garbage collected while there exists an event referenced by a task in a task queue that is to be dispatched on that MessagePort object, or while the MessagePort object's port message queue is enabled and not empty.

Authors are strongly encouraged to explicitly close MessagePort objects to disentangle them, so that their resources can be recollected. Creating many MessagePort objects and discarding them without closing them can lead to high transient memory usage since garbage collection is not necessarily performed promptly, especially for MessagePorts where garbage collection can involve cross-process coordination.

9.6 Broadcasting to other browsing contexts

Pages on a single origin opened by the same user in the same user agent but in different unrelated browsing contexts sometimes need to send notifications to each other, for example "hey, the user logged in over here, check your credentials again".

For elaborate cases, e.g. to manage locking of shared state, to manage synchronization of resources between a server and multiple local clients, to share a WebSocket connection with a remote host, and so forth, shared workers are the most appropriate solution.

For simple cases, though, where a shared worker would be an unreasonable overhead, authors can use the simple channel-based broadcast mechanism described in this section.

[Constructor(DOMString name), Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface BroadcastChannel : EventTarget {
  readonly attribute DOMString name;
  void postMessage(any message);
  void close();
  attribute EventHandler onmessage;
};

broadcastChannel = new BroadcastChannel(name)

Returns a new BroadcastChannel object via which messages for the given channel name can be sent and received.

broadcastChannel . name

Returns the channel name (as passed to the constructor).

broadcastChannel . postMessage(message)

Sends the given message to other BroadcastChannel objects set up for this channel. Messages can be structured objects, e.g. nested objects and arrays.

broadcastChannel . close()

Closes the BroadcastChannel object, opening it up to garbage collection.

A BroadcastChannel object has a channel name, a BroadcastChannel settings object, and a closed flag.

The BroadcastChannel() constructor, when invoked, must create and return a BroadcastChannel object whose channel name is the constructor's first argument, whose BroadcastChannel settings object is the incumbent settings object, and whose closed flag is false.

The name attribute must return the channel name.

The postMessage(message) method, when invoked on a BroadcastChannel object, must run the following steps:

1. Let source be this BroadcastChannel.

2. Let sourceSettings be source's BroadcastChannel settings object.

3. If source's closed flag is true, then throw an "InvalidStateError" DOMException and abort these steps.

4. Let sourceChannel be source's channel name.

5. Let targetRealm be a user-agent defined Realm.

6. Let clonedMessage be StructuredClone(message, targetRealm). Rethrow any exceptions.

7. Let destinations be a list of BroadcastChannel objects that match the following criteria:

   • Their BroadcastChannel settings object specifies either:

     • a global object that is a Window object and a responsible document that is fully active, or

     • a global object that is a WorkerGlobalScope object whose closing flag is false and whose worker is a suspendable worker.

   • Their BroadcastChannel settings object's origin is same origin with sourceSettings's origin.

   • Their channel name is a case-sensitive match for sourceChannel.

   • Their closed flag is false.

8. Remove source from destinations.

9. Sort destinations such that all BroadcastChannel objects whose BroadcastChannel settings objects specify the same responsible event loop are sorted in creation order, oldest first. (This does not define a complete ordering. Within this constraint, user agents may sort the list in any user-agent defined manner.)

10. For each BroadcastChannel object destination in destinations, queue a task that runs the following steps:

    1. Let targetRealm be destination's relevant settings object's Realm.

    2. Fire an event named message at destination, using MessageEvent, with the data attribute initialized to StructuredClone(clonedMessage, targetRealm) and the origin attribute initialized to the Unicode serialization of sourceSettings's origin.

    The tasks must use the DOM manipulation task source, and, for those where the event loop specified by the target BroadcastChannel object's BroadcastChannel settings object is a browsing context event loop, must be associated with the responsible document specified by that target BroadcastChannel object's BroadcastChannel settings object.

While a BroadcastChannel object whose closed flag is false has an event listener registered for message events, there must be a strong reference from global object specified by the BroadcastChannel object's BroadcastChannel settings object to the BroadcastChannel object itself.

The close() method must set the closed flag of the BroadcastChannel object on which it was invoked to true.

Authors are strongly encouraged to explicitly close BroadcastChannel objects when they are no longer needed, so that they can be garbage collected. Creating many BroadcastChannel objects and discarding them while leaving them with an event listener and without closing them can lead to an apparent memory leak, since the objects will continue to live for as long as they have an event listener (or until their page or worker is closed).

The following are the event handlers (and their corresponding event handler event types) that must be supported, as event handler IDL attributes, by all objects implementing the BroadcastChannel interface:

var authChannel = new BroadcastChannel('auth');
authChannel.onmessage = function (event) {
  if (event.data == 'logout')
    showLogout();
}

function logoutRequested() {
  // called when the user asks us to log them out
  doLogout();
  showLogout();
  authChannel.postMessage('logout');
}

function doLogout() {
  // actually log the user out (e.g. clearing cookies)
  // ...
}

function showLogout() {
  // update the UI to indicate we're logged out
  // ...
}