Due to a mix of curiosity and boredom, I asked my self "Can I make a website in C?" but as I could only set up a C++ project I decided to go for it and to accelerate the development time I decided to add Lua.
So that's what I did,sacrificing part of my time,sleep and mental health to achieve this weird objective using as language that only an elite that has sold itself to the devil can pretend to master 20% of it.
Noon is a web server that uses Lua as it's main language for handling requests and sending responses. It doesn't use any templating engine so everything is done in good 'ole HTML.
So,the project structure might be pretty unordered but here are the main things you need to know
- app : Contains a sample project usable by the server, to use it you need to set it as the working directory directory
- src : Contains the source code
Here are the main steps of the projects that I will be implementing to consider it a "foolish" web server/framework :
- Returning HTML page (done) ✅
- Returning JSON objects (done) ✅
- Handling requests body/form (done) ✅
- Handling requests cookies (not implemented) ❌
- Handling requests sessions (not implemented) ❌
- Add middlewares (done) ✅
- Have a full routing system (partially | in progress) 🟨️👷🏾
- Static routes (done) ✅
- Parameters (done) ✅
- Dynamic routes (not implemented) ❌
- Fetching data from the web (not implemented | in progress) ❌👷🏾
- Serving static files (partially implemented | in progress) 🟨 👷🏾
- HTTPS Support (not implemented) ❌
- Maybe add a templating engine (maybe) 🤷🏾♂️
To have a basic working app you need at least a noon.config.lua and one route.
The project is composed like this :
<app folder>/
noon(.exe) -- The server executable
noon.config.lua -- The configuration file
routes/ -- Contains the routes
middlewares -- Contains the middlewares
static/ -- Contains all the static filesThe noon.config.lua file looks like this :
-- noon.config.lua
appName= "MyApp"
version= "1.0"
routes= {
["/"] = "index.lua" -- / points to /routes/index.lua
["/api/hello"] = "api/hello.lua" --/api/hello points to /routes/api/hello.lua
...
}Routes are defined in the routes folder as lua scripts that contains functions corresponding to the http methods they respond to
-- index.lua
function GET()
local params = {}
return renderTemplate("/html/index.html",params),200
end
function POST()
...
end
...
-- /api/hello.lua
function GET()
local data = {
firstName = "John",
lastName = "Doe"
}
return jsonify(data),200
end
function POST()
...
end
I use a basic template engine that can only execute basic expressions or replace a variable.
To use it just pass the arguments as a table to the renderTemplate function and in the html surround the expression with {{ }}.
-- index.lua
function GET()
local params = {
title="My page",
name="Bob"
}
return renderTemplate("/html/index.html",params),200
end<!-- html/index.html -->
<html>
<head>
<title>{{title}}</title>
</head>
<body>
Hello, {{name}}
</body>
</html>Since static file serving is not implemented complete, you can't reference non-text assets like images,videos or audios.
You can use pictures from a cdn
I'm currently trying to implement data fetching and static file serving, but I can't figure out how to implement it. So to whoever has enough knowledge of C++, please feel free to help.
Yours faithfully,
A guy that has decided to lose his sanity to a language he already gave up on a few years ago.
Here is a list all the libraries that you will need to build it:
For any information you can contact me at pro.lakubudavid@gmail.com
It is normal for me to take 2 days to read my emails and 2 more days to reflect on the matter and respond calmly. The culture of immediacy and the constant fragmentation of time are not very compatible with the kind of life I lead.