Reliable Two-Way Message Passing in Chrome Extensions

[Tanzim mahtab]

Hi folks,

In a Chrome extension, what is the most reliable way to handle two-way message passing between components (e.g., content script, background, side panel)?
Should we :

1. Send a message and then send a separate follow-up message for the reply, or

2. Use the sendResponse callback to return data in the same message flow?
   
   

[woxxom]

Ideally, with sendMessage you should use sendReponse, because it reuses the communication channel opened by sendMessage. There should be no difference in reliability. Actually it can be argued that sendReponse is better because it allows you to detect an interrupted communication when the receiving page/worker is terminated your sendMessage will either result in an error which you can catch or the result will be undefined in case there were no listeners at all.