Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

       yaws_api - api available to yaws web server programmers

SYNOPSIS

       yaws_api:Function(...)

DESCRIPTION

       This  is  the  api available to yaws web server programmers. The Erlang
       module yaws_api contains a wide variety of functions that can  be  used
       inside yaws pages.

       Each  chunk  of  yaws  code  is  executed  while the yaws page is being
       delivered from the server. We give a very simple example here  to  show
       the basic idea. Imagine the following HTML code:

       <html>
       <body>

       <h1> Header 1</h1>

       <erl>
       out(Arg) ->
           {html, "<p> Insert this text into the document"}.
       </erl>

       </body>
       </html>

       The  out(Arg)  function  is supplied one argument, an #arg{} structure.
       We have the following relevant record definitions:

       -record(arg, {
                 clisock,        %% the socket leading to the peer client
                 client_ip_port, %% {ClientIp, ClientPort} tuple
                 headers,        %% headers
                 req,            %% request
                 clidata,        %% The client data (as a binary in POST requests)
                 server_path,    %% The normalized server path
                 querydata,      %% Was the URL on the form of ...?query (GET reqs)
                 appmoddata,     %% the remainder of the path up to the query
                 docroot,        %% wheres the data
                 fullpath,       %% full path to yaws file
                 cont,                  %% Continuation for chunked multipart uploads
                 state,          %% State for use by users of the out/1 callback
                 pid,            %% pid of the yaws worker process
                 opaque,         %% useful to pass static data
                 appmod_prepath, %% path in front of: <appmod><appmoddata>
                 pathinfo        %% Set to d/e when calling c.yaws for the request
                                 %% http://some.host/a/b/c.yaws/d/e
                }).

       The headers argument is also a record:

       -record(headers, {
                 connection,
                 accept,
                 host,
                 if_modified_since,
                 if_match,
                 if_none_match,
                 if_range,
                 if_unmodified_since,
                 range,
                 referer,
                 user_agent,
                 accept_ranges,
                 cookie = [],
                 keep_alive,
                 content_length,
                 authorization,
                 other = []   %% misc other headers
                }).

       it likes. We have the following functions to aid that generation.

API

       ssi(DocRoot, ListOfFiles)
              Server side include.  Just  include  the  files  as  is  in  the
              document.  The  files  will not be parsed and searched for <erl>
              tags.

       pre_ssi_files(DocRoot, ListOfFiles) ->
              Server side include of pre indented code.   The  data  in  Files
              will  be included but contained in a <pre> tag. The data will be
              htmlized.

       pre_ssi_string(String)
              Include htmlized content from String.

       f(Fmt, Args)
              The   equivalent   of   io_lib:format/2.   This   function    is
              automatically  -included in all erlang code which is a part of a
              yaws page.

       htmlize(Binary | List | Char)
              Htmlize an IO list object.

       setcookie(Name, Value, [Path, [ Expire, [Domain , [Secure]]]])
              Sets a cookie to the browser.

       find_cookie_val(Cookie, Header)
              This function can be used  to  search  for  a  cookie  that  was
              previously  set by setcookie/2-6. For example if we set a cookie
              as yaws_api:setcookie("sid",SomeRandomSid) , then on  subsequent
              requests      from      the     browser     we     can     call:
              find_cookie("sid",(Arg#arg.headers)#headers.cookie)

              The function returns [] if no cookie was  found,  otherwise  the
              actual cookie is returned as a string.

       redirect(Url
              This  function  generates  a  redirect  to the browser.  It will
              clear any previously set headers. So to generate a redirect  and
              set  a  cookie,  we need to set the cookie after the redirect as
              in:
              out(Arg) ->
                ... do some stuff

                Ret = [{redirect, "http://www.somewhere.com"},
                        setcookie("sid", Random)
                      ].

       redirect_self(Arg)
              If we want to issue a redirect to ourselves,  this  function  is
              useful.   It   returns   a   record   #redir_self{}  defined  in
              yaws_api.hrl. The record contains fields to construct a  URL  to
              ourselves.

              -record(redir_self, {
                        host,        %% string() - our own host
                        scheme,      %% http | https
                        scheme_str,  %% "https://"  | "http://"
                        port,        %% integer()  - our own port
                        port_str     %% "" | ":<int>" - the optional port part
                                     %%                 to append to the url
                       }).

       get_line(String)
              This function is convenient when getting \r\n terminated lines
              from a stream of data. It returns:

              {line, Line, Tail} or {lastline, Line, Tail}

              The function handles multilines as defined in e.g. SMTP or HTTP

       mime_type(FileName)
              Returns the mime type as defined by the extension of FileName

       stream_chunk_deliver(YawsPid, Data)
              When a yaws function needs to deliver chunks of data which it gets
              from a process. The other process can call this function to deliver
              these chunks. It requires the out/1 function to return the
              value {streamcontent, MimeType, FirstChunk} to work.
              YawsPid is the process identifier of the yaws process delivering the
              original .yaws file. That is self() in the yaws code.
              The Pid must typically be passed (somehow) to the producer of the stream.

       stream_chunk_deliver_blocking(YawsPid, Data)
              A synchronous version of the above function. This synchronous version
              must always be used when the producer of the stream is faster than the
              consumer. This is usually the case since the client is the WWW browser.

       stream_chunk_end(YawsPid)
              When the process discussed above is done delivering data, it must call
              this function to let the yaws content delivering process finish up
              the HTTP transaction.

       stream_process_deliver(Socket, IoList)
              Yaws allows application processes to deliver data directly to the
              client. The application tells yaws about such a process by returning
              {streamcontent_from_pid, MimeType, Pid} from its out/1
              function. In this case, Pid uses the
              stream_process_deliver/2 function to deliver data to the
              client. The application gets Socket from Arg#arg.clisock,
              and IoList is the data to be sent to the client.

       stream_process_deliver_chunk(Socket, IoList)
              Same as above but delivers IoList using HTTP chunked transfer
              format. IoList must have a size greater than zero. The
              application process delivering the data will have had to have make
              sure that the HTTP headers of the response indicate chunked transfer
              mode, either by ensuring no Content-Length header is set or by
              specifically setting the Transfer-Encoding header to chunked.

       stream_process_deliver_final_chunk(Socket, IoList)
              If the application process delivering data to the client uses chunked
              transfer mode, it must call this to deliver the final chunk of the
              transfer. This tells yaws to create a special final chunk in the
              format required by the HTTP specification (RFC 2616). IoList may
              be empty, but if its size is greater than zero, that data will be
              sent as a separate chunk before the final chunk.

       stream_process_end(Socket, YawsPid)
              Application processes delivering data directly to clients must call
              this function to inform yaws that they’ve finished using
              Socket. The YawsPid argument will have been passed to the
              process earlier when yaws sent it a message telling it to proceed with
              data delivery.

       parse_query(Arg)
              This function will parse the query part of the URL.
              It will return a {Key, Value} list of the items supplied in the query
              part of the URL.

       queryvar(Arg, VarName)
              This function is automatically included from yaws_api in all
               .yaws pages. It is used to search for a variable in the
              querypart of the url. Returns {ok, Val} or undefined.
              If a variable is defined multiple times, the function may also
              return {Val1, ....}.

       parse_post(Arg)
              This function will parse the POST data as supplied from the browser.
              It will return a {Key, Value} list of the items set by the browser.

       postvar(Arg, VarName)
              This function is automatically included from yaws_api in all
               .yaws pages. It is used to search for a variable in the
              POSTed data from the client. Returns {ok, Val} or undefined.
              If a variable is defined multiple times, the function may also
              return {Val1, ....}.

       getvar(Arg, VarName)
              This function  looks at the HTTP request method from the
              client and invokes postvar/2 if it is a POST from the client
              and queryvar/2 if it is a GET request from the client.

       parse_multipart_post(Arg)

              If the browser has set the Content-Type header to the value
              "multipart/form-data", which is the case when the browser
              wants to upload a file to the server the following happens:

              If the function returns {result, Res} no more data
              will come from the browser.

              If the function returns {cont, Cont, Res} the browser
              will supply more data. (The file was to big to come in one read)

              This indicates that there is more data to come and the out/1 function
              should return {get_more, Cont, User_state} where User_state might
              usefully be a File Descriptor.

              The Res value is a list of either:
              {header, Header} | {part_body, Binary} | {body, Binary}

              Example usage could be:
               <erl>

               out(A) ->
                      case yaws_api:parse_multipart_post(A) of
                           {cont, Cont, Res} ->
                                  St = handle_res(A, Res),
                                  {get_more, Cont, St};
                           {result, Res} ->
                                  handle_res(A, Res),
                                  {html, f("<pre>Done </pre>",[])}
                      end.

               handle_res(A, [{head, Name}|T]) ->
                    io:format("head:~p~n",[Name]),
                    handle_res(A, T);
               handle_res(A, [{part_body, Data}|T]) ->
                    io:format("part_body:~p~n",[Data]),
                    handle_res(A, T);
               handle_res(A, [{body, Data}|T]) ->
                    io:format("body:~p~n",[Data]),
                    handle_res(A, T);
               handle_res(A, []) ->
                    io:format("End_res~n").

               </erl>

       new_cookie_session(Opaque)
              Create  a new cookie based session, the yaws system will set the
              cookie. The new random generated cookie is  returned  from  this
              function.  The  Opaque argument will typically contain user data
              such as user name and password

       new_cookie_session(Opaque, TTL)
              As above, but allows to set a session specific  time-out  value,
              overriding the system specified time-out value.

       new_cookie_session(Opaque, TTL, CleanupPid)
              As  above,  but  also sends a message {yaws_session_end, Reason,
              Cookie, Opaque} to the provided CleanuPid where  Reason  can  be
              either  of  timeout  or normal. The Cookie is the HTTP cookie as
              returned by new_session() and the Opaque is  the  user  provided
              Opaque  parameter  to new_session().  The purpose of the feature
              is to cleanup resources assigned to the session.

       cookieval_to_opaque(CookieVal)

       print_cookie_sessions()

       replace_cookie_session(Cookie, NewOpaque)

       delete_cookie_session(Cookie)

       setconf(Gconf, Groups)
              This function is intended for embedded mode in yaws. It makes it
              possible  to  load a yaws configuration from another data source
              than /etc/yaws.conf, such as a database.   If  yaws  is  started
              with  the  environment {embedded, true}, yaws will start with an
              empty default configuration, and wait for some other program  to
              execute a setconf/2 The Gconf is a #gconf{} record and the Group
              variable is a list of lists of #sconf{}  records.  Each  sublist
              must  contain  #sconf{}  records  with  the  same IP/Port listen
              address.  To create a suitable initial #gconf{} record  see  the
              code   in   yaws_config:make_default_gconf/2.   Especially   the
              yaws_dir parameter is important to get right.

       url_decode(Str)
              Decode url-encoded string. A URL  encoded  string  is  a  string
              where  all  alfa  numeric characters and the the character _ are
              preserved and all other characters are encode as "%XY"  where  X
              and   Y  are  the  hex  values  of  the  least  respective  most
              significant 4 bits in the 8 bit character.

       url_encode(Str)
              Url-encodes a string. All URLs in HTML  documents  must  be  URL
              encoded.

       reformat_header(H)
              Returns  a  list  of  reformatted header values from a #header{}
              record. The return list is suitable for retransmit.

       request_url(ARG)
              Return the url as requested by the client.  Return  value  is  a
              #url{} record as defined in yaws_api.hrl

       parse_url(Str)
              Parse URL in a string, returns a #url record

       format_url(UrlRecord)
              Takes a #url record a formats the Url as a string

       call_cgi(Arg, Scriptfilename)
              Calls an executable CGI script, given by its full path.  Used to
              make ‘.yaws’ wrappers for CGI programs.  This  function  usually
              returns streamcontent.

       call_cgi(Arg, Exefilename, Scriptfilename)
              Like  before,  but  calls Exefilename to handle the script.  The
              file name of the script is handed to the executable  via  a  CGI
              meta variable.

       call_fcgi_responder(Arg)
              Calls  a FastCGI responder.  The address and port of the FastCGI
              application server are taken from the server configuration  (see
              yaws.conf).    Used   to   make  ‘.yaws’  wrappers  for  FastCGI
              responders.  Returns  the  same  return  values  as  out/1  (see
              below).

       call_fcgi_responder(Arg, Options)
              Same  as  above,  but  Options  overrides  the defaults from the
              server configuration:

              Options = [Option]
              Option -- one of the following:

              {app_server_host, string() | ip_address()} The hostname  or  the
              IP address of the FastCGI application server.

              {app_server_port,  0..65535}  The TCP port number of the FastCGI
              application server.

              {path_info,   string()}    Override    default    pathinfo    in
              Arg#arg.pathinfo.

              {extra_env,    ExtraEnv}    Override    default    pathinfo   in
              Arg#arg.pathinfo.

              ExtraEnv = [Var]
              Var = {Name, Value}
              Name = string()
              Value = string()

              {trace_protocol, boolean()} Enable or disable tracing of FastCGI
              protocol messages as info log messages.

              {log_app_error,   boolean()}   Enable   or  disable  logging  of
              application error messages: output to stderr and  non-zero  exit
              value.

       call_fcgi_authorizer(Arg) -> {allowed, Out} | {denied, Out}
              Calls a FastCGI authorizer.  The address and port of the FastCGI
              application server are taken from the server configuration  (see
              yaws.conf).    Used   to   make  ‘.yaws’  wrappers  for  FastCGI
              authorizers.  Variables contains the  values  of  the  variables
              returned by the FastCGI application server in the "Variable-XXX:
              YYY" headers.

              If access is denied, Out contains the complete response returned
              by  the  FastCGI  application server. This response is typically
              returned as-is to the HTTP client.

              If access is allowed, Out contains the response returned by  the
              FastCGI  application  server  minus  the  body  (i.e.  minus the
              content) which should be ignored per the FastCGI  specification.
              This  response is typically not returned to the HTTP client. The
              calling application module may wish to inspect the response, for
              example  by  extracting  variables  (see  fcgi_extract_variables
              below) or by inspecting the  headers  returned  by  the  FastCGI
              application server.

              Out -- See return values for out/1 below

       call_fcgi_authorizer(Arg, Options) -> {allowed, Out} | {denied, Out}
              Same  as  above,  but  Options  overrides  the defaults from the
              server configuration.  See  call_fcgi_responder/2  above  for  a
              description of Options.

       fcgi_extract_variables(Out) -> [{Name, Value}]
              Extracts  the  environment  variables  from a FastCGI authorizer
              response by looking for  headers  of  the  form  "Variable-Name:
              Value".

              Name = string() -- The name of the variable (the "Variable-" prefix
              has already been removed).
              Value = string() -- The value of the variable.

       dir_listing(Arg)
              Perform  a directory listing. Can be used in special directories
              when we don’t want to  turn  on  dir  listings  for  the  entire
              server.  Always returns ok.

RETURN VALUES from out/1

       The  out/1 function can return different values to control the behavior
       of the server.

       {html, DeepList}
              This assumes that DeepList is formatted  HTML  code.   The  code
              will be inserted in the page.

       {ehtml, Term}
              This  will  transform the erlang term Term into a stream of HTML
              content. The basic syntax of Term is

              EHTML = [EHTML] | {Tag, Attrs, Body} | {Tag, Attrs} | {Tag} |
                      binary() | character()
              Tag      = atom()
              Attrs = [{Key, Value}]  or {EventTag, {jscall, FunName, [Args]}}
              Key      = atom()
              Value = string()
              Body  = EHTML

              For example, {p, [], "Howdy"} expands into "<p>Howdy</p> and

              {form, [{action, "a.yaws"}],
                 {input, [{type,text}]}}

              expands into

              <form action="a.yaws"
                <input type="text">
              </form>

              It may be more convenient to generate erlang tuples  than  plain
              html code.

       {content, MimeType, Content}
              This  function  will  make  the  web  server  generate different
              content than HTML. This return value is only allowed in  a  yaws
              file  which  has only one <erl> </erl> part and no html parts at
              all.

       {streamcontent, MimeType, FirstChunk}
              This return value plays the same  role  as  the  content  return
              value above.

              However it makes it possible to stream data to the client if the
              yaws code doesn’t have  access  to  all  the  data  in  one  go.
              (Typically  if a file is very large or if data arrives from back
              end servers on the network.

       {streamcontent_with_timeout, MimeType, FirstChunk, Timeout}
              Similar to above, but with  an  explicit  timeout.  The  default
              timeout is 30 secs. I.e if the application fails to deliver data
              to the Yaws process, the streaming will stop. This is often  not
              the desired behaviour in Comet/Ajax applications.  It’s possible
              to provide ’infinity’ as timeout.

       {header, H}
              Accumulates a HTTP header. The trailing CRNL which  is  supposed
              to  end  all  HTTP headers must NOT be added. It is added by the
              server.   The  following  list  of  headers  are  given  special
              treatment.

              {connection, What}

              This  sets  the  connection header. If What is the special value
              "close", the connection will be closed once  the  yaws  page  is
              delivered to the client.

              {location, Url}

              Sets  the  Location:  header.  This header is typically combined
              with the {status, 302} return value.

              {cache_control, What}

              Sets the Cache-Control: header.

              {set_cookie, Cookie}

              Prepends a a Set-Cookie: header to the list  of  previously  set
              Set-Cookie: headers.

              {content_type, MimeType}

              Sets the Content-Type header.

              {content_length, Len}

              Normally  yaws  will  ship  Yaws  pages using Transfer-Encoding:
              chunked. This is because we generally can’t know how long a yaws
              page  will  be.  If  we for some reason want to force a Content-
              Length: header (and we  actually  do  know  the  length  of  the
              content, we can force yaws to not ship the page chunked.

              All  other  headers  must be added using the normal HTTP syntax.
              Example:

              {header, "My-X-Header: gadong"}

       {allheaders, HeaderList}
              Will clear all previously accumulated headers and replace  them.

       {status, Code}
              Will set another HTTP status code than 200.

       break  Will  stop  processing  of any consecutive chunks of erl or html
              code in the yaws file.

       ok     Do nothing.

       {redirect, Url}
              Erase all previous headers  and  accumulate  a  single  Location
              header. Set the status code.

       {redirect_local, Path}
              Does  a  redirect  to  the  same  Scheme://Host:Port/Path  as we
              currently are executing in.

       {get_more, Cont, State}
              When we are receiving large POSTs we can return this  value  and
              be invoked again when more Data arrives.

       {page, Page}
              Make  Yaws return a different page than the one being requested.

       {page, {Options, Page}}
              Like the  above,  but  supplying  an  additional  deep  list  of
              options.   For  now, the only type of option is {header, H} with
              the effect of accumulating the HTTP header H for page Page.

       {ssi, File, Delimiter, Bindings}
              Server side include File and  macro  expansion  in  File.   Each
              occurrence  of  a string, say "xyz", inside File which is inside
              Delimiters is replaced with the corresponding value in Bindings.

              Example: Delimiter = %%

              File contains the string .... %%xyz%%  .....

              Bindings contain the tuple {"xyz", "Dingbat"}

              The  occurrence  of  %%xyz%%  in  File  will  be  replaced  with
              "Dingbat" in the Server side included output.

              The {ssi, File, Delimiter, Bindings} statement  can  also  occur
              inside a deep ehtml structure.

       {bindings, [{Key1, Value2}, {Key2, Value2} .....]}
              Establish variable bindings that can be used in the page.

              All  bindings can then be used in the rest of yaws code (in HTML
              source and within erl tags).  In HTML source %%Key%% is expanded
              to  Value  and within erl tags yaws_api:binding(Key) can be used
              to extract Value and yaws_api:binding_exists(Key) can be used to
              check for the existence of a binding.

       {yssi, YawsFile}
              Include  a yaws file. Compile it and expand as if it had occured
              inline.

       [ListOfValues]
              It is possible to return a deep list of the above defined return
              values.   Any  occurrence of stream_content, get_more or page in
              this list is legal only if it is the last position of the  list.

AUTHOR

       Written by Claes Wikstrom

SEE ALSO

       yaws.conf(5) erl(1)