Streaming, via ActionController::Live

The new ActionController::Live module provides the ability to stream data to clients. Simply include the module into a controller to enable your app to send arbitrary streamed data. You'll have to use a threaded server, like thin and puma, in order to stream data; actions from streaming controllers run in a separate thread.

Here's an example from the Rails 4 documentation:

class MyController < ActionController::Base

  include ActionController::Live

 

  def stream

    response.headers['Content-Type'] = 'text/event-stream'

    100.times {

      response.stream.write "hello world\n"

        sleep 1

    }

    response.stream.close

  end

end




As the docs note, there are three things to keep in mind:




• You must write any headers before you call write or close on the response stream.
• You have to call close on the response stream when you're finished writing data.
• Ensure that your actions are thread-safe, as they will run in a separate thread.