YAWF4q: a pluggable mini HTTP server & template engine for Qt-4

Qt-only (no other dependencies) module to add a simple Web interface to your Qt application. Uses Qt4. Tested on Windows.

You'll need to set the QTLIB environment variable to compile the example Visual Studio project.

When you start the example server you will see the following screen in the browser:

You can type in your data and submit it to the server:

And you will get a a response page like this:

NOTE:

this code works only with Qt4 and cannot be ported to Qt5 because of removal of the HTTP parsing classes!!!
Qt Company is working on an embedded HTTP server module for Qt-5: https://github.com/qt-labs/qthttpserver, use it instead!
The template engine could be maybe reused in another project

1. Use it in your code like this:

  #include "CuteHttpServer.hpp"

  int main(int argc, char* argv[])
  {
    // your application:
    QApplication* qtAppl = new QApplication(argc, argv);
    
    // the webserver on port 3100
    ibkrj::yawf4q::CuteHttpServer testServer(3100);
    std::string error;

    if(!testServer.start(error))
        return -1;
  
    // run Qt
    qtAppl->exec();
  }

2. Use Yawf4qConfig.txt file to configure HTTP routing like this:

    # YAWF test configuration
    index.html$ :: TestHandlerBase
    person$ :: TestHandlerPerson

3. Your request handlers inherit the base handler class like this:

Warning: oldskool here!

    class TestHandlerBase
        : public CuteHttpHandler
    {
    public:
        TestHandlerBase() 
            : CuteHttpHandler("TestHandlerBase") {}; // boilerplate

        // base overrides
        virtual CuteHttpHandler* clone() { return new TestHandlerBase; } // boilerplate
        virtual void process(CuteSrvRequest& reqData, std::string& respData)
        {
            // handle your request 
            // ... 
            
            // you may use a template for the response if you want:
            respData = CuteHttpHandler::renderThis(jsonDataMap, templateString);
        }

    } g_handler1;

That's all.

PS: template magic is avoided as not to add a Boost dependency in here. If you don't mind that just use cppnetlib instead! For more background, I wrote a blogpost here: http://ib-krajewski.blogspot.com/2010/11/yet-another-web-framework-in-c.html

OPEN TODO:

routing: dispatch to different methods of a handler class (design ready, just implement)
read the templates from files
cache parsed templates
add config file parameter to CuteHttpServer's constructor
add direct parametrization with on the fly handlers and CuteHttpServer's constructor (???)
run a memory leak tool over that!
remove compiler warnings
serious testing

and more: