The Channel Messaging API

The Channel Messaging API allows iframes and workers to communicate with the main document thread, by passing messages

Introduction to Channel Messaging API
- How it works
An example with an iframe
An example with a Service Worker
Browser support

Introduction to Channel Messaging API

Given two scripts running in the same document, but in a different context, the Channel Messaging API allows them to communicate by passing messages through a channel.

This use case involves communication between

the document and an iframe
two iframes
two documents

How it works

Calling new MessageChannel() a message channel is initialized.

const channel = new MessageChannel()

The channel has 2 properties, called

port1
port2

Those properties are a MessagePort object. port1 is the port used by the part that created the channel, and port2 is the port used by the channel receiver (by the way, the channel is bidirectional, so the receiver can send back messages as well).

At each end of the channel you listen on one port, and you send messages to the other port.

Sending the message is done through the

otherWindow.postMessage()

method, where otherWindow is the other browsing context.

It accepts a message, an origin and the port.

For example:

const data = { name: 'Flavio' }
const channel = new MessageChannel()
window.postMessage(data, [channel.port2])

A message can be any of those supported values:

All primitive types, excluding symbols
Arrays
Object literals
String, Date, RegExp objects
Blob, File, FileList objects
ArrayBuffer, ArrayBufferView objects
FormData objects
ImageData objects
Map and Set objects

“Origin” is a URI (e.g. https://example.org). You can use '*' to allow less strict checking, or specify a domain, or specify '/' to set a same-domain target, without needing to specify which domain is it.

The other browsing context listens for the message using the message event:

self.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
  console.log('A new message arrived!')
})

self is same as using window in this case

Inside the event handler we can access the data sent by looking at the data property of the event object:

self.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
  console.log('A new message arrived!')
  console.log(event.data)
})

We can respond back by using MessagePort.postMessage:

self.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
  console.log('A new message arrived!')
  console.log(event.data)

  const data = { someData: 'hey' }
  event.ports[0].postMessage(data)
})

A channel can be closed by invoking the close() method on the port:.

self.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
  console.log('A new message arrived!')
  console.log(event.data)

  const data = { someData: 'hey' }
  event.ports[0].postMessage(data)
  event.ports[0].close()
})

An example with an iframe

Here’s an example of a communication happening between a document and an iframe embedded into it.

The main document defines an iframe and a span where we’ll print a message that’s sent from the iframe document. As soon as the iframe document is loaded, we send it a message on the channel we created.

<!doctype html>
<html>
  <body>
    <iframe src="iframe.html" width="500" height="500"></iframe>
    <span></span>
  </body>
  <script>
    const channel = new MessageChannel()
    const display = document.querySelector('span')
    const iframe = document.querySelector('iframe')

    iframe.addEventListener(
      'load',
      () => {
        iframe.contentWindow.postMessage('Hey', '*', [channel.port2])
      },
      false,
    )

    channel.port1.onmessage = (event) => {
      display.innerHTML = event.data
    }
  </script>
</html>

The iframe page source is even simpler:

<!doctype html>
<html>
  <script>
    window.addEventListener(
      'message',
      (event) => {
        // send a message back
        event.ports[0].postMessage('Message back from the iframe')
      },
      false,
    )
  </script>
</html>

As you can see we don’t even need to initialize a channel, because the window.onmessage handler is automatically run when the message is received from the container page.

The event sent is composed by the following properties:

data: the object that’s been sent from the other window
origin: the origin URI of the window that sent the message
source: the window object that sent the message

Always verify the origin of the message sender.

e.ports[0] is the way we reference port2 in the iframe, because ports is an array, and the port was added as the first element.

An example with a Service Worker

A Service Worker is an event-driven worker, a JavaScript file associated with web page. Check out the Service Workers guide to know more about them.

What’s important to know is that Service Workers are isolated from the main thread, and we must communicate with them using messages.

This is how a script attached to the main document will handle sending messages to the Service Worker:

// `worker` is the service worker already instantiated

const messageChannel = new MessageChannel()
messageChannel.port1.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
  console.log(event.data)
})
worker.postMessage(data, [messageChannel.port2])

In the Service Worker code, we add an event listener for the message event:

self.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
  console.log(event.data)
})

And it can send messages back by posting a message to messageChannel.port2, with

self.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
  event.ports[0].postMessage(data)
})

Browser support

The Channel Messaging API is currently supported by all major browsers, many of them since a long time, so even older versions are supporting it. Check out all the details on https://caniuse.com/#feat=channel-messaging.

Written on Feb 7, 2018

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