[erlang-questions] REST server

[Loïc Hoguin]

On 03/07/2016 08:27 PM, Vlad Dumitrescu wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I am an almost complete noob regarding this, so please excuse me if I am
> asking questions with obvious answers.
>
> I have an application that I'd like to expose via a REST api. From what
> I could find quickly, in the Erlang world it looks like the main options
> are Webmachine and Cowboy.
>
> Does anyone have any advice on which one fits better my requirements, as
> below?
>
> - the server must be embeddable in another application, i.e. possible to
> start/stop without a release

No problem for that with Cowboy, either through a function call or 
provided child specs.

> - it must be possible to configure it to use a dynamic port value
> (multiple independent servers may run on the same machine)

No problem, set {port, 0} option and then call ranch:get_port/1.

> - the REST API is delegating to an Erlang API, so ease of implementation
> would be nice :-)

Cowboy is inspired by Webmachine so I suppose they're pretty close for 
this one.

> - if it is possible to run multiple servers on the same Erlang runtime,
> then it would be a big plus

No problem, just declare more than one listener and you're good!

-- 
Loïc Hoguin
http://ninenines.eu
Author of The Erlanger Playbook,
A book about software development using Erlang