URLSessionWebSocketTask: Part 1

URLSessionWebSocketTask is the newest addition to Apple's Foundation networking library centered around URLSession. It provides support for HTTP connections using the new (relative to HTTP at least) websocket standard (version 13). Web sockets establish a persistent connection to an HTTP server and standardize a common framing structure to pass data back and forth between the client and server. This allows for realtime communication without supporting additional standard like MQTT.

A URLSessionWebSocketTask is created much like any other URLSessionTask.

let task = URLSession.shared.webSocketTask(with: URL(string: "https://some.websocket.server")!)
task.resume()

However, unlike other URLSessionTasks, creating and resuming a URLSessionWebSocketTask isn't very useful by itself. In fact, the above example doesn't do anything since no receive handler has been added.