Embedded web server

Embedded web server

[Joel Reymont]

Folks,

Have you delivered OCaml apps with a built-in web server?

What libraries did you use?

	Thanks in advance, Joel

P.S. I don't like Ocsigen for some reason

--
http://wagerlabs.com/

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Gabriel Kerneis]

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Le Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:54:09 +0000, Joel Reymont <joelr1@gmail.com> a
écrit :
> P.S. I don't like Ocsigen for some reason

I'm working on it and willing to improve it. May I know what you
dislike ? BTW, I don't think Ocsigen is a good idea for an embedded
server anyway, at least for the moment. But I'm nonetheless interrested
in your thoughts.

Sincerely,
-- 
Gabriel

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Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Gerd Stolpmann]

Am Dienstag, den 20.03.2007, 00:54 +0000 schrieb Joel Reymont:
> Folks,
> 
> Have you delivered OCaml apps with a built-in web server?

ocamlnet (ocamlnet.sf.net) has a web server library called nethttpd. It
is e.g. used for www.camlcity.org.

> What libraries did you use?
> 
> 	Thanks in advance, Joel
> 
> P.S. I don't like Ocsigen for some reason
> 
> --
> http://wagerlabs.com/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gerd Stolpmann * Viktoriastr. 45 * 64293 Darmstadt * Germany 
gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de          http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de
Phone: +49-6151-153855                  Fax: +49-6151-997714
------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Joel Reymont]

Gerd,

On Mar 20, 2007, at 12:15 PM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:

> ocamlnet (ocamlnet.sf.net) has a web server library called  
> nethttpd. It
> is e.g. used for www.camlcity.org.

Is the site hosted without Apache, Lighttpd, etc.? Just plain OCaml?

Is the source code for camlcity available anywhere?

	Thanks, Joel

--
http://wagerlabs.com/

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Joel Reymont]

Gabriel,

On Mar 20, 2007, at 8:08 AM, Gabriel Kerneis wrote:

> I'm working on it and willing to improve it. May I know what you
> dislike ?

I can't quite put a finger on it but I think it's the structure of  
the code one has to use to handle web requests.

--
http://wagerlabs.com/

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Gerd Stolpmann]

Am Dienstag, den 20.03.2007, 12:31 +0000 schrieb Joel Reymont:
> Gerd,
> 
> On Mar 20, 2007, at 12:15 PM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:
> 
> > ocamlnet (ocamlnet.sf.net) has a web server library called  
> > nethttpd. It
> > is e.g. used for www.camlcity.org.
> 
> Is the site hosted without Apache, Lighttpd, etc.? Just plain OCaml?

Yes, only plain OCaml.

> Is the source code for camlcity available anywhere?

Yes: https://gps.dynxs.de/svn/app-linkdb/trunk/

Please note: This is currently a bit hackish, because the linkdb
application was originally an ordinary CGI. I more or less pressed it
into the nethttpd frame. The interesting module is probably
linkdb/lib/cgi which creates some kind of fake CGI environment for the
rest of the program. So it is working, but no good example, and the code
is not well-structured. The main program is currently in linkdb/test.
The netplex.cfg isn't the real one. Documentation is lightyears out of
date. Hope you find it still impressive.

Gerd
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gerd Stolpmann * Viktoriastr. 45 * 64293 Darmstadt * Germany 
gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de          http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de
Phone: +49-6151-153855                  Fax: +49-6151-997714
------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Joel Reymont]

On Mar 20, 2007, at 1:39 PM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:

> Documentation is lightyears out of date. Hope you find it still  
> impressive.

Thank you Gerd!

I'm finishing up a translator from one language used to write trading  
systems into another. Hopefully, I'll be able to add more languages  
as time goes buy but for now I was trying to figure out whether to  
deliver a .NET GUI in F#, a command-line app or a command-line app  
with a built-in web server.

A plain command-line app is not very friendly to Windows users.  
There's not much to the GUI either: just enough to capture a block of  
text or open a file and to show another block of text.

I do foresee a need for a lot of help text to document the quirks of  
translation and I don't look forward to creating Windows help files.  
There's also a possibility that people may want to pay a few bucks  
per translation rather than pay a few hundred bucks upfront for the app.

With that in mind, the best option seems to be a command-line app  
with an embedded web server. There's no installation required and you  
can just unzip the package, run the app and point your web server to  
a port. The help files then are just plain html and css and live in  
the same directory as the app itself.

What do you think?

--
http://wagerlabs.com/

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Joel Reymont]

On Mar 20, 2007, at 8:08 AM, Gabriel Kerneis wrote:

> BTW, I don't think Ocsigen is a good idea for an embedded
> server anyway, at least for the moment.

Any particular reason why not?

--
http://wagerlabs.com/

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Joel Reymont]

Gerd,

On Mar 20, 2007, at 12:15 PM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:

> ocamlnet (ocamlnet.sf.net) has a web server library called  
> nethttpd. It
> is e.g. used for www.camlcity.org.

I had the following error while checking out from svn, not sure if it  
matters:

A    ocamlnet/code/src/netclient/examples/simple/http_download.ml
svn: In directory 'ocamlnet/code/src/netclient'
svn: Can't copy 'ocamlnet/code/src/netclient/.svn/tmp/text-base/ 
RELEASE.svn-base' to 'ocamlnet/code/src/netclient/RELEASE.tmp': No  
such file or directory

Also, I think you can easily host ocamlnet at the Google code  
repository since it provides, svn for free. A Google Group for  
ocamlnet would probably be much more convenient than SourceForge as  
well.

	Thanks, Joel

--
http://wagerlabs.com/

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Gabriel Kerneis]

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Le Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:13:05 +0100, Joel Reymont <joelr1@gmail.com> a
écrit :
> 
> On Mar 20, 2007, at 8:08 AM, Gabriel Kerneis wrote:
> 
> > BTW, I don't think Ocsigen is a good idea for an embedded
> > server anyway, at least for the moment.
> 
> Any particular reason why not?

Three reasons :
1° The API will probably change in the next few weeks, until we reach
v1.0. 
2° It uses dynlink so you can't compile it in native-code (we're
working on it currently thanks to a modified version of ocaml provided
by Alain Frisch, but it won't be available in ocaml 3.10 I guess).
3° It's a standalone server, not designed to be embedded as a module
(I think this would be the easiest thing to fix if needed).

Regards,
-- 
Gabriel Kerneis

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Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Joel Reymont]

On Mar 20, 2007, at 12:15 PM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:

> ocamlnet (ocamlnet.sf.net) has a web server library called  
> nethttpd. It
> is e.g. used for www.camlcity.org.

It's a real bummer for me but nethttpd is GPL which means I cannot  
use it in my commercial product :-(. No embedding for me, I guess. F#  
here I come!

--
http://wagerlabs.com/

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Gabriel Kerneis]

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Le Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:28:22 +0100, Joel Reymont <joelr1@gmail.com> a
écrit :
> It's a real bummer for me but nethttpd is GPL which means I cannot  
> use it in my commercial product :-(. No embedding for me, I guess.
> F# here I come!

FYI, Ocsigen is GPL too. Though, the fact that it is a standalone web
server could be an advantage for you : you can distribute it with your
software, each of them with its own license. But as I as said
previously, it may not be mature enough yet.

Regards,
-- 
Gabriel Kerneis


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Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Gabriel Kerneis]

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Le Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:09:56 +0200, Gabriel Kerneis
<gabriel.kerneis@enst.fr> a écrit :
> Le Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:28:22 +0100, Joel Reymont <joelr1@gmail.com> a
> écrit :
> > It's a real bummer for me but nethttpd is GPL which means I cannot  
> > use it in my commercial product :-(. No embedding for me, I guess.
> > F# here I come!
> 
> FYI, Ocsigen is GPL too.

I meant LGPL.

Sorry for the noise,
-- 
Gabriel 


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Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Bünzli Daniel]

Le 27 mars 07 à 09:21, Gabriel Kerneis a écrit :

>> FYI, Ocsigen is GPL too.
>
> I meant LGPL.

+ the usual ocaml linking exception. Which means that you can  
statically link against a publicly distributed version of the library  
and distribute the resulting executable under the terms of your  
choice (without complying with clause 6 of the LGPL).

Daniel

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Gabriel Kerneis]

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Le Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:56:58 +0200, Francisco Jos? Valverde Albacete
<fva@tsc.uc3m.es> a écrit :
> Hi Gabriel,
> 
> I am concerned by the development stage of Ocsigen being a little bit 
> too unripe... My 3rd year students are carrying out a "collective 
> project" (building a Web 2.0 service (or rather an embryo of such a 
> thing)) and some of them should be building a standalone Ocsigen
> server in some weeks time...
> 
> We chose Ocsigen because it was so close to normal OCaml idioms and
> they only needed an overall idea of what the server was doing (which
> they had already acquired in some other subjects).
> 
> Should we be thinking about using alternative technology?

Well, you can use the 0.6 release and stick to it for the moment. It's
considered stable (well I mean, it runs http://www.ocsigen.org without
any problem) and won't change. If any change happens, it will be on 0.7
to 1.0 releases. I guess we'll try to keep backward compatibility, but
we're thinking about unifying a bit the various service/action/
auxiliary service/etc. concepts to make things easier to use.
Persistent data are the other hot topic (basically, how to reload the
server without loosing every current session). To my mind, Ocsigen 0.6
is suitable for a school project as long as you are aware that if you
intend to maintain the software in the future, you could have to adapt
it a bit. Of course, changes (if any) will be documented and
how-to-upgrade instructions will be provided. 

CC: ocsigen list & Vincent Balat for further ideas

Last thing : Ocsigen is Ocaml 3.10 compliant ;-) (I must confess I'm
proud of it as I developed the missing parts - the stable version is
not publicly available yet but I can provide it if you wish) 

Regards,
-- 
Gabriel Kerneis


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Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Hendrik Tews]

Joel Reymont <joelr1@gmail.com> writes:

   It's a real bummer for me but nethttpd is GPL which means I cannot use
   it in my commercial product :-(. 

Ask the authors to offer you a different license. 

Bye,

Hendrik

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Joel Reymont]

Gerd,

On Mar 27, 2007, at 11:58 AM, Hendrik Tews wrote:

> Ask the authors to offer you a different license.

Who are the authors of nethttpd and related GPL libraries?

What was the reason behind the choice of GPL for nethttpd and related  
components?

	Thanks, Joel

--
http://wagerlabs.com/

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Vincent Hanquez]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 12:32:07PM +0100, Joel Reymont wrote:
> What was the reason behind the choice of GPL for nethttpd and related  
> components?

So that guys like you doesn't profit on it, without giving back something 
(the source code of what you build on top) ... 

Cheers,
-- 
Vincent Hanquez

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Joel Reymont]

On Mar 27, 2007, at 12:32 PM, Vincent Hanquez wrote:

> So that guys like you doesn't profit on it, without giving back  
> something
> (the source code of what you build on top) ...

I understand this but the whole of ocamlnet could have been made GPL  
and wasn't. nethttpd is just a chunk of the whole thus my question.

--
http://wagerlabs.com/

Re: [Caml-list] Embedded web server

[Gerd Stolpmann]

Am Dienstag, den 27.03.2007, 13:00 +0100 schrieb Joel Reymont:
> On Mar 27, 2007, at 12:32 PM, Vincent Hanquez wrote:
> 
> > So that guys like you doesn't profit on it, without giving back  
> > something
> > (the source code of what you build on top) ...
> 
> I understand this but the whole of ocamlnet could have been made GPL  
> and wasn't. nethttpd is just a chunk of the whole thus my question.

This is quite easy: The development of nethttpd was contractor work. I
got money for that, I was allowed to make it open source, but the
condition was to choose the GPL.

The copyright holder is the company Baretta s.r.l, please ask Alex
Baretta <alex@barettadeit.com> whether you can use the library in your
context.

Gerd
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gerd Stolpmann * Viktoriastr. 45 * 64293 Darmstadt * Germany 
gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de          http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de
Phone: +49-6151-153855                  Fax: +49-6151-997714
------------------------------------------------------------