From 1aa0ca7a15e20532959d8f3ee54930c38b46e67f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Nick O'Leary <nick.oleary@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2017 13:54:51 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Created Design: Node Messaging API (markdown)

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 Design:-Node-Messaging-API.md | 93 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 create mode 100644 Design:-Node-Messaging-API.md

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+The current mechanism for a node to handle messages is as follows:
+
+ - a handler is registered for the `input` event
+ - within that handler a node can call `this.send()` as many times as it wants
+ - if an error is hit, it can call `this.error(err,msg)`
+
+```
+var node = this;
+this.on('input', function(msg) {
+    // do something with 'msg'
+    if (!err) {
+        node.send(msg);
+    } else {
+        node.error(err,msg);
+    }
+});
+```
+
+This simple system has a few limitations that we want to address:
+
+ 1. we cannot correlate a message being received with one being sent - particularly when there is async code involved in the handler
+ 2. we do not know if a node has finished processing a received message
+ 3. due to 1 & 2, we cannot build any timeout feature into the node
+ 4. we know of a use case where an embedder of node-red requires nodes to be strictly one-in, one-out, and that should be policed by the runtime. Putting aside the specifics, we cannot provide any such mode of operation with the current model
+
+This design note explores how this mechanism could be updated to satisfy these limitations.
+
+---
+
+### Option 1: Add a `node.complete` function - v1
+
+The first proposal is to add a new function to the Node object that can be called when a node has finished handling a message.
+
+```
+this.on('input', function(msg) {
+    // do something with 'msg'
+    if (!err) {
+        node.send(msg);
+    } else {
+        node.error(err,msg);
+    }
+    node.complete(msg);
+});
+```
+
+ - this relies on the user passing msg through - something that could be a source of programming error.
+ - it would need clear semantics over when it was called and how it relates to `node.error`.
+
+### Option 2: Add a `node.complete` function - v2
+
+The second proposal is similar to the first, but the `complete` function can also be used to indicate a failure:
+
+```
+this.on('input', function(msg) {
+    // do something with 'msg'
+    if (!err) {
+        node.send(msg);
+        node.complete(msg);
+    } else {
+        // Log the error, but don't provide the msg obj here
+        node.error(err);
+        // Provide the err - which will trigger any Catch nodes
+        node.complete(msg,err);
+    }
+});
+```
+
+ - this relies on the user passing msg through - something that could be a source of programming error.
+ - it would need clear semantics over when it was called and how it relates to `node.error`.
+
+
+### Option 3: Pass in scoped `send` and `done` functions
+
+If the event handler is registered with three arguments, the runtime will pass in functions that should be used to send or mark the msg as handled.
+
+```
+this.on('input', function(msg, send, done) {
+    // do something with 'msg'
+    if (!err) {
+        send(msg);
+        done();
+    } else {
+        // Log the error, but don't provide the msg obj here
+        done(err);
+    }
+});
+```
+
+ - this feels the most 'node.js-like'. The presence of a `done` callback is familiar to many apis. Calling it
+   without an argument is considered success, with an argument is considered failure.
+ - the functions can be scoped to the received message so the node does not need to provide the message back
+ - the runtime can tell if the handler expects these extra arguments or not, so can adapt its behaviour to match
+ - need to consider whether the node should still be allowed to use `node.send` and `node.error` directly. It would be possible to disable either of these functions if we see this new style message handler registered. There is certainly a case to support `node.error` regardless - a single message can legitimately trigger multiple errors.
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