About

mathserver is a simple RESTful web service that serves up mathmetical computations. It uses the Flask framework to handle the incoming HTTP requests. At the present time, it includes the following functionality: ##Fibonacci Sequences GET /fibonacci/n will return a Fibonacci sequence with n numbers, where n &gte; 0.
Sequences are returned in XML format; see schemas/fibonacci.xsd for schema.
For negative values of n, a 403 Forbidden HTTP error code will be returned.

Installation and Use

Install pip if you don't already have it

For Ubuntu: $ sudo apt-get install python-pip

Install Flask

$ sudo pip install flask

Fetch and run the server

$ git clone https://github.com/chrissnell/mathserver.git
$ cd mathserver
$ python mathserver.py

Generate a Fibonacci sequence

$ curl -s http://localhost:5000/fibonacci/10

Testing

Schema Validation

Install libxml

For Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install libxml2-utils

Validate output against XSD

From the mathserver top-level directory...

$ curl -s http://localhost:5000/fibonacci/10 | xmllint --noout --schema schemas/fibonacci.xsd -

This should produce the following output if the retured XML is valid:

- validates

Math Validation

With the server running, from the top-level directory...

$ curl -s http://localhost:5000/fibonacci/10 | python tests/validatefibbonaci.py

This should produce the following output if the returned Fibonacci sequence is valid:

Server returned 8 as the fifth Fibonacci number.
Fibonacci sequence validated.

To Do

• Caching of Fibonacci calculations
• Fancy, more descriptive error pages
• Write a performance test that feeds random Fibonacci number requests to ab and see it performs
• Makefile to automate installation and testing