What is the remote_stream in the example code?

[pietgeursen]

//create a stream and pipe it to another instance
var stream = ebt.createStream('bob')
stream.pipe(remote_stream).pipe(stream)

I'm trying to understand where that remote_stream variable comes from. And more importantly what it's for.

[dominictarr]

remote_stream is a connection to the remote peer speaking ebt protocol. it's another instance of ebt.createStream, but at the other end of the network connection.
for example, in the tests: https://github.com/dominictarr/epidemic-broadcast-trees/blob/master/test/stream.js#L45-L51

var a_stream = alice_ebt.createStream('bob') //alice's stream for bob
var b_stream = bob_ebt.createStream('alice') //bob's stream for alice
a_stream.pipe(b_stream).pipe(a_stream)

I use the term "remote" in this way through out muxrpc documentation.

In practice, in ssb, it's via a muxrpc duplex stream, but you could go over tcp stream (if you ONLY did ebt) and in the tests it does it directly without using networking, to make the tests more deterministic.