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Server-side JavaScript

Prof. Cesare Pautasso
http://www.pautasso.info
[email protected]
@pautasso

Dynamic Web

Where are we?

Web Architecture

Web Server Architecture

Web Server in JavaScript

var http = require("http");
var url = require("url");
function onRequest(request, response) { 

var pathname = url.parse(request.url).pathname;
 if (typeof rh[pathname] === 'function') { 
   rh[pathname](request, response); 
 } else { 
   response.writeHead(404); 
   response.end(); 
 }
}
http.createServer(onRequest).listen(8888);

Routing Request Handlers

//Request Handlers
var root = function(request, response) { … }
var hello = function(request, response) {

  response.writeHead(200,
              {"Content-Type": "text/html"}); 
  response.write("…"); //body
  response.end();
}

//Routing Table (Map URL -> Request Handler)
rh["/"] = root;
rh["/hello"] = hello;

Working with requests

request.url
request.method
request.headers

Working with URLs

var url = require(‘url’);
var p_url = url.parse('/status?name=cp', true);
p_url = {
  href: '/status?name=cp',
  search: '?name=cp',
  query: { name: ‘cp' }, 
  pathname: '/status'
}

Working with responses

response.writeHead(statusCode, [msg], [headers]);
response.write(body);
response.end();

Explicit Headers

response.setHeader(key, value);
response.getHeader(key);
response.statusCode
response.write(body);
response.end();

Implicit Headers

Concurrency - Threads

Concurrency - Events

Events

  • Pro: No synchronization needed, there is only one thread that reads/write variables shared between different request handlers
  • Con: A slow request handler will block the entire server. All I/O operations need to be non-blocking

Threads

  • Con: Shared variables between thread need to be protected from concurrent access
  • Pro: Threads run in parallel, if one is slow/blocked, it will not delay all other pending requests (unless there is a shared lock)

Non-blocking callbacks

//blocking function
function(arguments)
var y = f(x);
...

Blocking functions return their result when they finish

//non-blocking function
function(arguments, callback)
f(x, function(y) { ... });

Non-blocking functions return immediately and use callbacks to pass the results

Composing callbacks

var y = f(x);
var z = g(y);
var z = g(f(x));
...

How to write this code using non-blocking functions?

Request Events

var postData = "";
request.setEncoding("utf8");
request.on("data", 
  function(chunk) { postData += chunk; });
request.on("end", 
  function() { 
    console.log ("received" + postData); 
  });

Tools

References

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