Working app

[jayantna]

Video Demo (Loom screen recording)

Architecture Overview

• Asynchronous Runtime: Powered by Tokio, allowing many clients to be handled concurrently without blocking.
• Networking: Built on TCP Sockets (TcpListener on the server and TcpStream on the client).
• Clap: A simple CLI interaction with the chat app.

Server

1. Broadcast: Uses tokio::sync::broadcast to create a message channel. Any message sent to the transmitter (tx) is instantly cloned to every active receiver (rx).
2. Concurrency: Each new client is tokio::spawn into its own asynchronous task, ensuring one slow client doesn't lag the others.
3. Event Multiplexing: Uses tokio::select! in the client handler to listen simultaneously for:
   • Incoming Traffic: Reading typed messages from the client's TCP socket.
   • Outgoing Traffic: Receiving broadcasted messages from the channel to write back to the client.

Client

1. Handshake: Sends a username immediately upon connection for the server to identify the sender.
2. Bi-directional Stream: Splits the TcpStream into a Reader (for receiving server messages) and a Writer (for sending user input).