For The Web

Getting Started

For doing client stuff (http requests, etc), you'll want FTW::Agent.

For doing server stuff (http serving, etc), you'll want FTW::Server. (not implemented yet)

Overview

net/http is pretty much not good. Additionally, DNS behavior in ruby changes quite frequently.

I primarily want two things in both client and server operations:

  • A consistent API with good documentation and tests
  • Modern web features: websockets, spdy, etc.

Desired features:

  • A HTTP client that acts as a full user agent, not just a single connections. (With connection reuse)
  • HTTP and SPDY support.
  • WebSockets support.
  • SSL/TLS support.
  • Browser Agent features like cookies and caching
  • An API that lets me do what I need.
  • Server and Client modes.
  • Support for both normal operation and EventMachine would be nice.

For reference:

Agent API

Common case

agent = FTW::Agent.new

request = agent.get("http://www.google.com/")
response = request.execute
puts response.body.read

# Simpler
response = agent.get!("http://www.google.com/").read
puts response.body.read

SPDY

SPDY should automatically be attempted. The caller should be unaware.

I do not plan on exposing any direct means for invoking SPDY.

WebSockets

# 'http(s)' or 'ws(s)' urls are valid here. They will mean the same thing.
websocket = agent.websocket!("http://somehost/endpoint")

websocket.publish("Hello world")
websocket.each do |message|
  puts :received => message
end

Server API

I have implemented a rack server, Rack::Handler::FTW. It does not comply fully with the Rack spec. See 'Rack Compliance Issues' below.

Under the FTW rack handler, there is an environment variable added, "ftw.connection". This will be a FTW::Connection you can use for CONNECT, Upgrades, etc.

There's also a websockets wrapper, FTW::WebSockets::Rack, that will help you specifically with websocket requests and such.

Rack Compliance issues

Due to some awkward and bad requirements - specifically those around the specified behavior of 'rack.input' - I can't support the rack specification fully.

The 'rack.input' must be an IO-like object supporting #rewind which rewinds to the beginning of the request.

For high-data connections (like uploads, HTTP CONNECT, and HTTP Upgrade), it's not practical to hold the entire history of time in a buffer. We'll run out of memory, you crazy!

Details here: https://github.com/rack/rack/issues/347

Other Projects

Here are some related projects that I have no affiliation with: