frame-rpc

rpc between iframes and windows using postMessage with no serialization

example

expose a method from a page that will be loaded as an iframe:

var RPC = require('frame-rpc');
var origin = document.referrer;
 
var rpc = RPC(window, window.parent, origin, {
    beep: function (n, cb) {
        document.querySelector('#n').textContent = n;
        cb(n * 111);
    }
});

then from the parent page containing the iframe:

var RPC = require('frame-rpc');
var frame = document.querySelector('iframe');
var usrc = new URL(frame.getAttribute('src'));
var origin = usrc.protocol + '//' + usrc.host;
 
frame.addEventListener('load', function (ev) {
    var rpc = RPC(window, frame.contentWindow, origin);
    rpc.call('beep', 5, function (result) {
        document.querySelector('#result').textContent = result;
    });
});

methods

var RPC = require('frame-rpc')

var rpc = RPC(src, dst, origin, methods)

Create a new rpc instance that listens for 'message' events on src and writes data to dst.postMessage().

origin must be the URL of dst. Any messages from src that do not match origin are ignored. If origin is '*', the location of incoming messages is not checked and the output messages are sent to anyone listening. Use carefully.

Any methods defined will be exposed to the other endpoint.

methods can be an object with names that map to methods or a function methods(rpc) that returns an object to map names to methods.

The last argument of each function exposed in methods can be a callback to send a response.

The protocol is symmetric so each side can expose methods to the other side.

rpc.call(method, args...)

Call a method on the remote endpoint with some arguments args...

The last argument can be a callback for receiving a reply.

rpc.apply(method, args)

Call a method on the remote endpoint with an array of arguments args.

The last argument can be a callback for receiving a reply.

rpc.destroy()

Remove the event listeners and don't respond to any more messages.

protocol

The protocol is designed to only listen to frame-rpc messages because often there is a lot of noise over the postMessage event bus from other subsystems (polyfills for setImmediate send messages, for example).

Each message is either a method request with parameters in arguments:

{
  protocol: 'frame-rpc',
  version: '1.0.0',
  sequence: 123,
  method: 'beep',
  arguments: [ 5 ]
}

or a callback response that contains the method result(s) in arguments:

{
  protocol: 'frame-rpc',
  version: '1.0.0',
  response: 123,
  arguments: [ 555 ]
}

All other messages that don't match these formats are ignored.

install

With npm do:

npm install frame-rpc

or fetch a pre-built version from browserify-cdn:

http://wzrd.in/standalone/frame-rpc@latest

license

MIT