Web server

Deploy a website using this web server made in C++ from scratch!
A socket server to take incoming requests is also embedded directly in the project.
To easily handle back-end with this web server, you have a new custom tag at your disposal for your HTML pages.
DO NOT RUN THIS PROJECT WITH ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILILEGES. If you have binding issues with the configured port, simply allow the web_server(.exe) binary to use this specific port.

🕸️ Add new routes

To add new routes to the project, you just have to register them in the register_routes function the routes/routes.cpp script.
For example, to create the page /demo that runs the function demo_page when it's requested, we add it to the function:

void Routes::register_routes()
{
    routes["/"] = []() -> std::string
    {
        return Pages::page_home();
    };

    routes["/home"] = []() -> std::string
    {
        return Pages::page_home();
    };
    
    routes["/demo"] = []() -> std::string
    {
        return Pages::page_demo();
    };
}

Do not forget to declare the function and add it to the Pages namespace in the routes/pages (if you wish to follow the infrastructure as it).
And also keep in mind that your page MUST return a string. This string will be used as the page to display back to the client.
This is why the default pages / and /home return HTML code.

⚒️ Custom tag

To build the back-end of your website in C++, this project offers you a new tag to directly use in your HTML pages: <++ ++>.
To use it, you put the tag in your HTML page, and give it a name.
For instance, if we want to create a tag named "test", we write this directly into our HTML page: <++ test ++>.
Once it's done, in the function that you associated to your specific route, to replace the tag with actual data, you define a vector list of BackendData objects.
Afterwards, you simply have to replace the tags with some data using the helper function replace_custom_tags.
Let's imagine I want to replace my test tag with the message "Hello World!":

// Format: backend_data["tag_name"] = "data".
const std::vector<BackendData> backend_data
{
    { "test", "Hello World!" }
};

std::vector<std::string> html_page = Files::read_file("./website/page.html");       // Read your HTML file content.
const std::string rendering = Routes::replace_custom_tags(backend_data, html_page); // Replace all tags with the data defined in the vector list above.

Real case example: https://github.com/Arrrkorrr/web-server/blob/master/routes/pages/home.cpp.

⚙️ Configuration

You can configure the web server using the ./config/server.config file.
The default configuration is available at the bottom of this section.
Here are the different options you have:

• "ADDRESS" -> Address to deploy the server to.
• "PORT" -> Port to listen on the specified address.
• "MAX_RETRIES" -> Amount of time the socket server tries to listen the port before aborting.
• "MAX_REQUEST_LENGTH" -> Maximum length of a request. Keep in mind that your operating system might still set a hard limit for file names.

ADDRESS=127.0.0.1
PORT=8080
MAX_RETRIES=5
MAX_REQUEST_LENGTH=100

📦 Requirements

• CMake compiler.
• GCC/G++.

📥 Installation

1. Download the project.
   
2. Build your website with it.
   
3. Compile it using build.sh or build.bat.
   
4. Enjoy!

To compile for Windows systems using build.bat, verify the cmake/g++ compiler paths.

🤝 User Agreement

By downloading and/or using this program, you confirm that you are solely responsible for how you use this software and you accept the MIT License, available in the LICENSE.md file. You agree as well that this agreement extends to any prior version of the program, and any new version of the user agreement in any future update, overwrites this one.