How would I use Socket.io on a dedicated node.js server on a php site?

Question

For a web application coded in PHP, I am powering a lot of the functionality that would traditionally utilize AJAX, like real-time chat, with Socket.io. In order to use Websockets without straining Apache servers, I have servers running node.js specifically for the Websocket connections. I intend to use DNode to allow the php scripts to call the node.js Websocket functions. How would I do this? Please provide a simple example if possible.

I realize that this may not be the most efficient structure, but because of the large number of connections utilizing real-time functionality at the same time, running Websockets from PHP would be very server-intensive. I also know that there are other ways of achieving real-time communication between server and client, like long polling and forever iframes, but there are specific reasons behind the choice of Websockets.

Answer 1

This is an alternative to send data from PHP to Node.js:

<?php

$ch = curl_init();

$data = array('name' => 'Foo', 'file' => '@/home/user/img.png');

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://localhost:8082/test'); /* Nodejs */
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

curl_exec($ch);
?>

More info here.

In app.js

app.post('/test', function(req, res){
    console.log("name: " + req.body.name);
...

I hope that is helpful.