Re: [boost] Boost.HTTP ?

From: Phil Endecott (spam_from_boost_dev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-12-10 09:39:49

Dean Michael Berris wrote:
> 2. There has been initial intent to develop a server-side
> implementation for HTTP in cpp-netlib which has been dropped because
> there really is no single best way to implement an HTTP server

Yes, absolutely.  I think that the most useful approach would be to 
provide building-blocks for things like HTTP header and URI parsing [I 
have some Spirit code for this that I'd be prepared to contribute], 
compression [Sebastian Redl seems to have gzip in his IOChains 
proposal, but can it be re-used in an HTTP server without bringing lots 
of baggage?], encryption, authentication, ETags (essentially hashes of 
the content) and conditional fetches -- all of this done with attention 
to security.  This really needs to be done in a way that will fit in to 
thread-per-connection, thread pool, select()-based and other server 
designs, and perhaps also as a CGI program or Apache server module.

How far can the server implementation be decoupled from the 
content-specific stuff, and what interfaces should there be between them?

Michael Dickey wrote:
>> would it be better to wait and try to merge my library (or at least its
>> functionality) into cpp-netlib?

Far from merging your library into something else, I encourage you to 
see how much you can break it up into smaller chunks and to make it 
compatible with, yet not dependent on, other libraries.

Remember that there's also some GSoC CGI code pending.

Regards,  Phil.