NetFlex

NetFlex is a modern C++11 HTTP Server.

Requirement

NetFlex has no dependency. Its only requirement is C++11.

This library is still under development

Example

//! netflex server
netflex::http::server server;

//! routes
//! /:var_name provides you a way to define URLs including variables
server.add_route({netflex::http::method::GET, "/users/:user_name/articles/:post_id",
  [](const netflex::http::request& request, netflex::http::response& response) {
    __NETFLEX_LOG(info, "/users/:user_name/articles/:post_id callback triggered");
    __NETFLEX_LOG(info, "Headers: " + netflex::misc::printable_header_list(request.get_headers()));
    __NETFLEX_LOG(info, "Params: " + netflex::misc::printable_params_list(request.get_params()));

    response.set_body("What's up?!\n");
    response.add_header({"Content-Length", "12"});
  }});

//! optional middlewares
server.add_middleware([](netflex::routing::middleware_chain& chain, netflex::http::request& request, netflex::http::response& response) {
  //! alter request
  request.add_header({"MiddleWare-Custom-Header", "MiddleWare custom header value"});

  //! proceed
  chain.proceed();

  //! alter response
  response.set_body(response.get_body() + "Powered by Netflex\n");
  response.add_header({"Content-Length", response.get_body().length()});
});

//! run server
server.start("0.0.0.0", 3001);

Wiki

A Wiki is available and provides full documentation for the library as well as installation explanations.

Doxygen

A Doxygen documentation is available and provides full API documentation for the library.

Motivations and goals

Serving HTTP requests from a C++ software might seem unconventional, but some projects do require it (and I personally already encounter such need).

However, even though C++ is getting older with a more and more complete standard library and a huge active community, tools for this kind of tasks are very limited. A few solutions exist down the road, hopefully, including cpp-netlib which is the main and maybe only usable C++ library providing HTTP server & client features.

However, cpp-netlib could be lot better. Its design is pretty old, the documentation is a real mess and the resulting library is not stable enough.

NetFlex aims to provide an alternative to cpp-netlib and other smaller C++ HTTP libraries with a modern C++ design. One of its goal is to be as much flexible as possible in order for the users to integrate it easily in their existing program while providing the core features to fulfill HTTP support.

NetFlex will be compliant with the following HTTP RFC:

• RFC 7230: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing (June 2014)
• RFC 7230: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content (June 2014)
• RFC 7230: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Conditional Requests (June 2014)
• RFC 7230: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Range Requests (June 2014)
• RFC 7230: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Caching (June 2014)
• RFC 7230: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Authentication (June 2014)

That is, NetFlex aims to be HTTP/1.1 RFC compliant. Support will be first provided for HTTP, then HTTPS in a second time and lastly HTTP/2.0.

License

NetFlex is under MIT License.

Contributing

Please refer to CONTRIBUTING.md.

Author

Simon Ninon