How to do it...

We need to perform the following steps to try this recipe:

1. First, we create a class that will be our server:

public class ServerMock {

    public static final URI CONTEXT = 
    URI.create("http://localhost:8080/");
    public static final String BASE_PATH = "ssevents";

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            final ResourceConfig resourceConfig = new 
            ResourceConfig(SseResource.class);

            final HttpServer server = 
            GrizzlyHttpServerFactory.createHttpServer(CONTEXT, 
            resourceConfig, false);
            server.start();

            System.out.println(String.format("Mock Server started
            at %s%s", CONTEXT, BASE_PATH));

            Thread.currentThread().join();
        } catch (IOException | InterruptedException ex) {
            System.out.println(ex.getMessage());
        }
    }
}

2. Then, we create a JAX-RS endpoint to send the events to the clients:

@Path(ServerMock.BASE_PATH)
public class SseResource {

    private static volatile SseEventSink SINK = null;
 
    @GET
    @Produces(MediaType.SERVER_SENT_EVENTS)
    public void getMessageQueue(@Context SseEventSink sink) {
        SseResource.SINK = sink;
    }
 
    @POST
    public void addMessage(final String message, @Context Sse sse) 
    throws IOException {
        if (SINK != null) {
            SINK.send(sse.newEventBuilder()
                .name("sse-message")
                .id(String.valueOf(System.currentTimeMillis()))
                .data(String.class, message)
                .comment("")
                .build());
        }
    }
}

3. Then, we create a client class to consume the events generated from the server:

public class ClientConsumer {

    public static final Client CLIENT = ClientBuilder.newClient();
    public static final WebTarget WEB_TARGET = 
    CLIENT.target(ServerMock.CONTEXT
    + BASE_PATH);
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        consume();
    }

    private static void consume() {

        try (final SseEventSource sseSource =
                     SseEventSource
                             .target(WEB_TARGET)
                             .build()) {

            sseSource.register(System.out::println);
            sseSource.open();

            for (int counter=0; counter < 5; counter++) {
                System.out.println(" ");
                for (int innerCounter=0; innerCounter < 5; 
                innerCounter++) {
                    WEB_TARGET.request().post(Entity.json("event "
                    + innerCounter));
                }
                Thread.sleep(1000);
            }
   
            CLIENT.close();
            System.out.println("\n All messages consumed");
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            System.out.println(e.getMessage());
        }

    }
}

4. For you to try it out, first run the ServerMock class and then the ClientConsumer class. If everything worked well, you should see something like this:

 InboundEvent{name='sse-message', id='1502228257736', comment='',   data=event 0}
 InboundEvent{name='sse-message', id='1502228257753', comment='',   data=event 1}
 InboundEvent{name='sse-message', id='1502228257758', comment='',   data=event 2}
 InboundEvent{name='sse-message', id='1502228257763', comment='',   data=event 3}
 InboundEvent{name='sse-message', id='1502228257768', comment='',   data=event 4}

These are the messages sent from the server to the client.