Building a More Advanced Application with NestJS and Node.js

Advanced NestJs

After getting comfortable with basic CRUD operations and understanding the core concepts of NestJS, I felt ready to tackle something more complex. I decided to build a real-time chat application using WebSockets with NestJS and Node.js. This was a new area for me, but I was excited to dive in and learn.

Integrating WebSockets in NestJS

WebSockets allow for real-time communication between the server and the client, making it perfect for building a chat application. NestJS makes it simple to work with WebSockets through the built-in @nestjs/WebSockets module.

Here’s a quick summary of how I implemented the WebSocket gateway:

1. Setting up the Gateway: The gateway is a NestJS provider that listens to incoming WebSocket events. I created a ChatGateway that handled messages, connected users, and disconnections.
2. Broadcasting Messages: One of the cool things I learned is how to broadcast messages to all connected clients. With the @WebSocketServer() decorator, I could easily access the WebSocket server and use methods server.emit() to send messages to clients in real-time.
3. Handling Events: Each time a user sends a message, the gateway captures the message and broadcasts it to other users using the…