gRPC support for Node.js

Introduction

gRPC is an open source Remote Procedure Call (RPC) framework - see https://grpc.io/docs/.

Objects

This extension creates:

• ‘NodeJS Call to gRPC service method’ object when a call to a gRPC method is found inside a .js file and 
• ‘NodeJS gRPC service method’ when a gRPC method is defined within a .js file.

These objects are named *{ServiceName}.{MethodName}. *When a Node.js Call to gRPC service method object has the same name as a Node.js gRPC service method object, these objects are linked.

Icon	Description
	NodeJS Call to gRPC service method
	NodeJS gRPC service method

Supported frameworks and APIs

Both the @grpc/grpc-js and grpc packages are supported.

Analysis of proto files

This extension extracts possible grpc ServiceName and MethodName from .proto files.  If the .proto files are missing from the analyzed source code, this extension will not be able to create most gRPC objects.

Server side

Calls to the addService or addProtoService of a grpc Server are analyzed. From the first argument of the call we extract the ServiceName. From the second argument, we extract pairs of MethodName andhandler function. For each pair, we create a Node.js gRPC service method *object *named *{ServiceName}.{MethodName} *with a callLink to the corresponding handler.

Example

When analyzing the following Source Code:

const grpc = require('grpc');
function greet(){
   //...
}
function greetManyTimes(){
   //...
}

const server = new grpc.Server();
server.addService(service.GreetServiceService, {
    greet: greet,
    greetManyTimes: greetManyTimes
});

you will get the following result:

Client side

When there is a call to a method named as a gRPC method defined in a proto file, the analyzer evaluates a possible service name from the instantiation of the client. If both the service name and the method names match a gRPC method definition in a proto file, a Node.js Call to gRPC service method object is created. Both dynamic (using the loadPackageDefinition API) and static (using protocol buffer compiler protoc) generation of the client are supported.

Example

Here is an example with a dynamically generated client. In the following source code, we see that there is a client.greet() call. The client comes from a service GreetService. 

const grpc = require('grpc')
const protoLoader = require('@grpc/proto-loader')
const greetProtoDefinition = protoLoader.loadSync(greetProtoPath, {
   //...
});
const greetPackageDefinition = grpc.loadPackageDefinition(greetProtoDefinition).greet
const client = new greetPackageDefinition.GreetService("localhost:50051",
        grpc.credentials.createInsecure()
)

function my_greet(){
    client.greet(
                 //...
                )
}

function my_greet_many_times(){
    client.greetManyTimes(
                          //...
                         )

}

If there is a .proto file defining a GreetService service with methods greet and greetManyTimes, you will get the following results (assuming that the analyzed source code also contains the definition of the corresponding gRPC methods):