Simple Console Chat

Your goal is to write code in client.js to implement a console-based chat feature using socket.io

The client should do the following:

1. Prompt for the user's name, then attempt to connect to the server

2. When the client has connected to the server:

   • Print 'Successfully connected to server' and prompt the user for a message with a > character

3. When the user types a message:

   • Print 'Sending message: "[message text]"' then prompt the user for another message with a > character
   • Use the emit function to send a message to the server with event name of 'simple chat message' and a string message argument of the form '[user name] says "[message text]"'

4. When the client receives a message from the server:

   • Print the message to the console, then again prompt the user for a message with a > character

5. When the client loses the connection to the server (eg. if the server goes down):

   • Print 'Connection lost...' and prompt the user for a message with a > character
   • (Note that socket.io will automatically attempt to reconnect.
     If reconnection is successful then the action in step 2 should be performed)

Example

Note: A walkthough video for this example is available on YouTube or our website

Here is the console output and input for each of 3 clients showing 3 messages.

Time	Client 1	Client 2	Client 3
1	What's your name ? Mark	What's your name ? Mohammad	What's your name ? Kimiko
2	Successfully connected to server	Successfully connected to server	Successfully connected to server
3	>	>	>
4	(User 1 types a message)
5	> My favourite movie is Aliens
6	(Client 1 sends message to server)
7	Sending message: "My favourite movie is Aliens"
8		(Client 2 receives message)	(Client 3 receives message)
9		> Mark says "My favourite movie is Aliens"	> Mark says "My favourite movie is Aliens"
10		(User 2 types a message)
11		> I prefer Terminator 2
12		Sending message: "I prefer Terminator 2"
13	(Client 1 receives message)		(Client 3 receives message)
14	> Mohammad says "I prefer Terminator 2"		> Mohammad says "I prefer Terminator 2"
15	(Server goes down)
16	> Connection lost...	> Connection lost...	> Connection lost...
17			(User 3 types a message)
18			> What about Back To The Future?
19			Sending message: "What about Back To The Future?"
20	(Server comes up)
21	> Successfully connected to server	> Successfully connected to server	> Successfully connected to server
22	(Client 1 receives message)	(Client 2 receives message)
23	> Kimiko says "What about Back To The Future?"	> Kimiko says "What about Back To The Future?"

Tips

• You will need to use the socket.io client API. You can get an idea of how to code the client with this getting started page (although keep in mind it is designed for a browser interface, not a command line interface)
• Use the rl.question function to prompt the user and read in the user's response
• Note that after we print a message to the console we usually then prompt the user to enter a message - consider having one function for this behaviour