Web/API/RTCDataChannel/message event

The WebRTC message event is sent to the onmessage event handler on an RTCDataChannel object when a message has been received from the remote peer.

Bubbles	No
Cancelable	No
Interface	MessageEvent
Event handler property	onmessage

Note: The message event uses as its event object type the MessageEvent interface defined by the HTML specification.

Examples

For a given RTCDataChannel, dc, created for a peer connection using its createDataChannel() method, this code sets up a handler for incoming messages and acts on them by adding the data contained within the message to the current document as a new <p> (paragraph) element.

dc.addEventListener("message", ev => {
  let newParagraph = document.createElement("p");
  let textNode = document.createTextNode(event.data);
  newParagraph.appendChild(textNode);

  document.body.appendChild(newParagraph);
}, false);

Lines 2-4 create the new paragraph element and add the message data to it as a new text node. Line 6 appends the new paragraph to the end of the document's body.

You can also use an RTCDataChannel object's onmessage event handler property to set the event handler:

dc.onmessage = ev => {
  let newParagraph = document.createElement("p");
  let textNode = document.createTextNode(event.data);
  newParagraph.appendChild(textNode);

  document.body.appendChild(newParagraph);
}

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between BrowsersThe definition of 'the <code>message</code> event' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
message event	Chrome Full support 56	Edge Full support ≤79	Firefox Full support Yes	IE No support No	Opera Full support 43	Safari Full support Yes	WebView Android Full support 56	Chrome Android Full support 56	Firefox Android Full support Yes	Opera Android Full support 43	Safari iOS Full support Yes	Samsung Internet Android Full support 6.0

Legend

Full support  

Full support

No support  

No support

See also

• WebRTC API
• A simple RTCDataChannel example
• Related events: open, close, and error
• RTCDataChannel.send()

RTCDataChannel: message event by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.