httpd module vs inets {packet,http}

[Sean Hinde]

That is interesting feedback on the tutorial, thanks.

If I can find time to wrestle again with the sometimes flaky update  
mechanism on the Trapexit HOWTO pages I will update the tutorial to  
point out more clearly where the API to user code appears, as well as  
checkin a couple of bugfixes from folks who have studied it deeply  
and posted on the list.

FWIW I would recommend Yaws most highly for new applications. It is  
not nearly as heavyweight as it first appears, and is very nice for  
writing this sort of application.

Sean

On 8 Mar 2006, at 08:11, Ryan Rawson wrote:

> I didn't like the howto - it seemed like my code would be littered
> with http protocol droppings, even though the actual framing is taken
> care of by the http packet mode.
>
> I think for me, yaws seems like this whole big thing, and kind of
> bothers me - enough to look at alternatives first.
>
> Thanks for the mod_esi pointer.
>
> -ryan
>
> On 3/8/06, Matthias Lang <matthias@REDACTED> wrote:
>>
>> A "REST" web service seems to be some sort philosophy for how to
>> design a service. For the purpose of "how do I do this in Erlang", I
>> think it just boils down to "how do I serve dynamically generated web
>> pages". If it's not, then my answer probably misses the point.
>>
>> So: if you just want to serve dynamic web pages, you can choose
>> between two ready-made web servers: OTP's httpd and YAWS. Both web
>> servers are used in the real world. They have different peformance
>> tradeoffs and different approaches to interfacing with 'your'
>> application. YAWS seems to be more popular for new applications. If
>> you can't make up your mind about which one to use, flip a coin.
>>
>> The OTP httpd interface you probably want to use is 'mod_esi':
>>
>>   http://www.erlang.org/doc/doc-5.4.12/lib/inets-4.6.2/doc/html/ 
>> mod_esi.html
>>
>> Writing code to use it is straightforward, the hard part is all the
>> fudging around with httpd.conf.
>>
>> If, on the other hand, you want to write your own web server 'from
>> scratch', then the undocumented http mode of the packet driver is
>> useful. That's what the 'howto' you found is about.
>>
>> Matthias
>>
>> --------------------
>>
>> Ryan Rawson writes:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I read the 'fast httpd' howto from trapexit.org, and I also  
>>> looked at
>>> the httpd module in OTS.  I'm a little confused - it seems to me  
>>> that
>>> the httpd howto doesn't use the httpd module, it uses a undocumented
>>> feature of the packet driver (which may in turn internally use the
>>> httpd module).  While the httpd documentation seems to describe
>>> callbacks but its kind of thinly documented.  Not the end of the
>>> world, but I'm confused - what is the recommended thing to do here?
>>> What do other people do?  Say for example, creating a REST "web
>>> service" ?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance for any tips and hints.
>>> -ryan
>>