c# client side streaming

[Sam]

Hi all, 

I’m using gRPC’s client-side streaming functionality (C#) to send many messages to a server. Most examples I can see on the web show a certain amount of messages sent and then read a reply. Like the SumExample in C#:

using (var call = client.Sum())
{
    await call.RequestStream.WriteAllAsync(numbers);
    Console.WriteLine("Sum Result: " + await call.ResponseAsync);
}

I use the client-side streaming in a slightly different way: a long lived stream to the server. I have multiple threads sending to the server and I use it like this:

I have a Connection class that wraps the gRPC client, the implementation goes something like this:

public class Connection
{
   private readonly IClientStreamWriter<Request> _clientSideStream;
 
   public Connection(RequestService.RequestServiceClient client)
   {
       // get a reference to the stream
       _clientSideStream = client.TransactionExchangeClientStream().RequestStream;
   }
 
    // called a lot by multiple threads
   public async Task SendAsync(Request request)
   {
       await _clientSideStream.WriteAsync(request);
   }


    // when the app decides to stop talking entirely to the server
    public async Task CloseConnection()
    {
       await _clientSideStream.CompleteAsync().ConfigureAwait(false);
    }
}

I keep a reference to IClientStreamWriter so that I can WriteAsync to it. After some time (potentially days, maybe more) the application might need to close the connection. Note that for now, I actually don’t event care about the response.

Is this valid use of client-side streaming ? Anything I should be careful about ?

Sam 

[Jan Tattermusch]

Keeping a client-streaming RPC open and sending messages (often times this would semantically be "notifications") to the server as they become available (=not immediately)  is one of the main use cases of client-side streaming and it's definitely a legitimate use case. 

Whenever using long-lived streaming RPC, you there are some additional concerns you need to be aware of. I highly recommend this talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Naonb2XD_2Q

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "grpc.io" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to grpc-io+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/grpc-io/613fea5a-fe51-40b5-a69f-cbf82190b797%40googlegroups.com.

--

Jan