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| 0.7.0 | Dec 28, 2023 |
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#852 in HTTP server
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rust-cgi
Easily create CGIfootnote:[Retro!]footnote:[Common Gateway Interface 1.1, RFC
3875] programmesfootnote:[Yes, I'm spelling it programme, the correct way.] in
Rust based on link:http types.
:toc:
Installation & Usage
Cargo.toml:
[code,toml]
[dependencies]
cgi2 = "0.7"
Use the cgi::main macro on your main function, taking in a Request and returning a Response.
[code,rust]
#[cgi::main]
fn main(request: cgi::Request) -> cgi::Response {
cgi::text_response(200, "Hello World")
}
This also works if you return a Result.
If your function returns a Result the error is printed to stderr and an HTTP 500 error is returned.
[code,rust]
#[cgi::main]
fn main(request: cgi::Request) -> Result<cgi::Response, String> {
let greeting = std::fs::read_to_string("greeting.txt").map_err(|_| "Couldn't open file")?;
Ok(cgi::text_response(200, greeting))
}
It will parse & extract the CGI environmental variables, and the HTTP request body to create
Request, call your function to create a response, and convert your Response into the
correct format and print to stdout. If this programme is not called as CGI (e.g. missing
required environmental variables), it will panic.
It is also possible to call the cgi::handle function directly inside your main function:
[code,rust]
fn main() {
cgi::handle(|request: cgi::Request| -> cgi::Response {
cgi::html_response(200, "<html><body><h1>Hello World!</h1></body></html>")
})
}
Response Shortcuts
Several shortcuts create shortcuts easily:
cgi:empty_response(status_code):: A HTTP Reponse with no body and that HTTP
status code, e.g. return cgi::empty_response(404); to return a
link:HTTP 404 Not Found.
cgi::html_response(status_code, text):: Converts text to bytes (UTF8) and
sends that as the body with that status_code and HTML Content-Type header.
cgi::string_response(status_code, text):: Converts text to bytes (UTF8),
and sends that as the body with that status_code, e.g. return cgi::string_response(200, "Hello World!"):: returns a simple plain text response. cgi::binary_response(status_code, blob):: Sends blob` with that status code.
Re-exports
http is re-exported, (as cgi::http).
cgi::Response/Request are http::Response<Vec<u8>>/Request<Vec<u8>>.
Running locally
Python provides a simple CGI webserver you can use to run your scripts. The
binaries must be in a cgi-bin directory, so you'll need to create that
directory and copy your binary into it. Given a project named example, run
this in your project root directory (i.e. where Cargo.toml is):
mkdir cgi-bin
cargo build --example hello_world
cp target/debug/examples/hello_world cgi-bin/hello_world
python3 -m http.server --cgi
and then open link:http://localhost:8000/cgi-bin/hello_world[].
See also
Things using this
Resources
- link:hyper's http.
- link:
httpAPI documentation - link:RFC 3875 - The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) v1.1
Why?
CGI is old, and easy to deploy. Just drop a binary in the right place, and Apache (or whatever) will serve it up. Rust is fast, so for simple things, there should be less downsides to spinning up a custom HTTP server.
Copyright
Copyright link:https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html[GNU Affero GPL v3 (or later)]. See the file link:LICENCE[]
Dependencies
~2MB
~46K SLoC