HTTP server

The HTTP server module implements a lightweight HTTP server. More...

Classes
class	mi::http::IRequest
	This interface holds all the parameters of a request. More...
class	mi::http::IResponse
	This interface holds all the parameters of a response. More...
class	mi::http::IData_handler
	A data handler may be added to a connection. More...
class	mi::http::IConnection
	The connection class represents a connection from a client to the server. More...
class	mi::http::IWeb_socket_state_handler
	A WebSocket state handler that can be installed to a WebSocket connection to handle events of the WebSocket. More...
class	mi::http::IWeb_socket_data_handler
	A WebSocket data handler that can be installed to a WebSocket connection to handle data arriving at the WebSocket. More...
class	mi::http::IWeb_socket
	The WebSocket connection class represents a connection that is built on top of an HTTP connection. More...
class	mi::http::IWeb_socket_handler
	WebSocket handlers are responsible for handling WebSocket requests. More...
class	mi::http::IRequest_handler
	Request handlers are responsible for handling HTTP requests. More...
class	mi::http::ICGIRequest_handler
	CGI request handlers are responsible for handling HTTP requests. More...
class	mi::http::IResponse_handler
	Response handlers can be used to modify responses generated by request handlers. More...
class	mi::http::IServer
	The server builds a framework for the handlers. More...
class	mi::http::IFactory
	The factory can be used to instantiate the built-in HTTP classes. More...

Detailed Description

The HTTP server module implements a lightweight HTTP server.

The HTTP server itself is only a framework for handler classes. It will accept incoming connections and extract various parameters of the request, like URL, query parameters, headers etc. Then it will call all request handlers in sequence until one of the handlers signals that the request was completely handled by the handler.

The server is multithreaded and will start one thread for each connection.

Any number of request handler classes may be installed to the HTTP server. Each of those handler classes has to implement a handle() function. This function gets the requesting connection. From the connection the handle() function may get the various parameters of the request.

Each handler may alter the various request and response parameters. This is useful for preprocessing the request for subsequent handlers. In that case it can return false which will pass the request to subsequent handlers. Note that if a handler changes the URL of a request and then returns false then the iteration over the handlers will start again from the first handler.

If a request handler is responsible for handling a request it may first alter the response and then use the IConnection::print() or IConnection::enqueue() function to output data. Then it has to return true to indicate that no subsequent request handlers have to be called.

In addition to the request handlers, response handlers may be installed to the server. A response handler is called just before the response is sent out to the client. It may alter the response header fields and it may cause side effects (like installing data handlers). Each request or response handler may install a data handler to the connection. All payload data sent to the client will be passed through all data handlers installed to the connection. The data handlers may or may not alter the data passed through it. This may be used to do things like SSI (server-side include) expansion, server side script execution, implementing logging etc.

To create a server the mi::http::IFactory needs to be obtained from the DiCE API using mi::neuraylib::INeuray::get_api_component(). The factory can then be used to create as many HTTP servers as needed and also to create built-in request and response handlers.