[Seaside] HTTP Server Structure
Stephen Pair
stephen at pairhome.net
Mon Nov 17 20:31:22 CET 2003
Sven Van Caekenberghe wrote:
> On 17 Nov 2003, at 17:47, Stephen Pair wrote:
>
>> For Comanche 6.2, the following will start an http file server on
>> your default directory:
>>
>> | ma |
>> ma := ModuleAssembly core.
>> ma serverRoot: FileDirectory default fullName.
>> ma documentRoot: FileDirectory default fullName.
>> ma directoryIndex: 'index.html index.htm'.
>> ma serveFiles.
>> (HttpService startOn: 8080 named: 'httpd') plug: ma rootModule
>
>
> Yeah, I found that somewhere in a class comment, I now have it working as
>
> | ma |
> ma := ModuleAssembly core.
> ma serverRoot: (FileDirectory on: '/Users/sven/Sites/') fullName.
> ma documentRoot: (FileDirectory on: '/Users/sven/Sites/') fullName.
> ma directoryIndex: 'index.html index.htm'.
> ma serveFiles.
> (HttpService startOn: 8080 named: 'httpd') plug: ma rootModule
>
> I don't understand the difference between #serverRoot and
> #documentRoot, I thought an HTTP service only needed a directory to
> serve files from, and an optional URL prefix ?
This was originally intended to be something akin to Apache's notion of
a server root and a document root. The document root can be different
in different contents (i.e. for different virtual hosts) and is used to
establish the root path for serving static documents from disk. Server
root is a location on disk that is not in the document root hiearchy and
is thus appropriate for things that shouldn't be accessible over the
web. A module could use this path to store configuration settings or
something (as an example). However, at this point, I don't think
anything uses the server root variable.
>> The best docs for Comanche 6.2 (registered as KomHttpServer on
>> SqueakMap) are located in various class comments. Start with the
>> class comments for KomHttpServerInfo. Most (if not all) of the
>> ComancheModule subclasses also include helpful class comments with
>> examples.
>
>
> There are indeed some class comments, but the overall structure is
> quite factored and hard to follow/grasp. Many classes in Squeak(Map)
> are lacking (class) comments. Unless I am mistaken and remember it
> incorrectly, VisualWorks used to be (and maybe still is) much better
> in that respect (let alone the fact that there was a real manual).
Yes, I know...with Comanche I've tried to be better that what is
typically found in Squeak (therefore, people often just assume that
Comanche has no docs). I just checked and all but one class (the SUnit
test class) in the KomHttpServer package is documented with class comments.
The basic idea in Comanche is that an HttpRequest is received then
delegated to a hierarchy of ComancheModules. A module accepts a request
and decides if it can build a response or whether it should delegate the
request to its sub-modules. Some modules transform a request on the way
in, and other modules will modify a response on the way out, and still
others do both.
- Stephen
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