webcc

C++ client and server library for HTTP and REST based on Boost.Asio.

Please turn to our Wiki (under construction) for more tutorials and guides.

Wondering how to build Webcc? Check Build Instructions.

Client API Examples

A complete client example:

#include <iostream>

#include "webcc/client_session.h"
#include "webcc/logger.h"

int main() {
  // Configure logger.
  WEBCC_LOG_INIT("", webcc::LOG_CONSOLE);
  
  // Session provides convenient request APIs, stores request configurations
  // and manages persistent connenction.
  webcc::ClientSession session;

  // Catch exceptions for error handling.
  try {
    // Send a HTTP GET request.
    auto r = session.Get("http://httpbin.org/get");

    // Print the response content data.
    std::cout << r->content() << std::endl;

  } catch (const webcc::Error& error) {
    std::cout << error << std::endl;
  }

  return 0;
}

The Get() method is nothing but a shortcut of Request(). Using Request() directly is more complicated:

auto r = session.Request(webcc::RequestBuilder{}.Get().
                         Url("http://httpbin.org/get")
                         ());

As you can see, a helper class named RequestBuilder is used to chain the parameters and finally build (don't miss the () operator) a request object.

Both the shortcut and Request() accept URL query parameters:

// Query parameters are passed using a std::vector. 
session.Get("http://httpbin.org/get", { "key1", "value1", "key2", "value2" });

session.Request(webcc::RequestBuilder{}.Get().
                Url("http://httpbin.org/get").
                Query("key1", "value1").
                Query("key2", "value2")
                ());

Adding additional headers is also easy:

session.Get("http://httpbin.org/get",
            {"key1", "value1", "key2", "value2"},
            {"Accept", "application/json"});  // Also a std::vector
                
session.Request(webcc::RequestBuilder{}.Get().
                Url("http://httpbin.org/get").
                Query("key1", "value1").
                Query("key2", "value2").
                Header("Accept", "application/json")
                ());

Accessing HTTPS has no difference from HTTP:

session.Get("https://httpbin.org/get");

NOTE: The HTTPS/SSL support requires the build option WEBCC_ENABLE_SSL to be enabled.

Listing GitHub public events is not a big deal:

auto r = session.Get("https://api.github.com/events");

You can then parse r->content() to JSON object with your favorite JSON library. My choice for the examples is jsoncpp. But the library itself doesn't understand JSON nor require one. It's up to you to choose the most appropriate JSON library.

Server API Examples

Suppose you want to create a book server and provide the following operations with RESTful API:

• Query books based on some criterias.
• Add a new book.
• Get the detailed information of a book.
• Update the information of a book.
• Delete a book.

The first two operations can be implemented by deriving from webcc::ListService:

class BookListService : public webcc::RestListService {
protected:
  // Get a list of books based on query parameters.
  webcc::ResponsePtr Get(const webcc::UrlQuery& query) override;

  // Create a new book.
  // The new book's data is attached as request content in JSON format.
  webcc::ResponsePtr Post(webcc::RequestPtr request) override;
};

The others, derive from webcc::DetailService:

// The URL is like '/books/{BookID}', and the 'url_matches' parameter
// contains the matched book ID.
class BookDetailService : public webcc::DetailService {
protected:
  // Get the detailed information of a book.
  webcc::ResponsePtr Get(const webcc::UrlArgs& args,
                         const webcc::UrlQuery& query) override;

  // Update a book.
  webcc::ResponsePtr Put(webcc::RequestPtr request,
                         const webcc::UrlArgs& args) override;

  // Delete a book.
  webcc::ResponsePtr Delete(const webcc::UrlArgs& args) override;
};

As you can see, all you have to do is to override the proper virtual functions which are named after HTTP methods.

The detailed implementation is out of the scope of this document, but here is an example:

webcc::ResponsePtr BookDetailService::Get(const webcc::UrlArgs& args,
                                          const webcc::UrlQuery& query) {
  if (args.size() != 1) {
    // Using kNotFound means the resource specified by the URL cannot be found.
    // kBadRequest could be another choice.
    return webcc::ResponseBuilder{}.NotFound()();
  }

  const std::string& book_id = args[0];

  // Get the book by ID from, e.g., the database.
  // ...

  if (<NotFound>) {
    // There's no such book with the given ID. 
    return webcc::ResponseBuilder{}.NotFound()();
  } else {
    // Convert the book to JSON string and set as response content.
    return webcc::ResponseBuilder{}.OK().Data(<JsonStringOfTheBook>).Json()();
  }
}

Last step, bind the services and run the server:

webcc::RestServer server(8080, 2);

server.Bind(std::make_shared<BookListService>(), "/books", false);
server.Bind(std::make_shared<BookDetailService>(), "/books/(\\d+)", true);

server.Run();

Please see examples/rest_book_server.cc for more details.