small but scheme-typically powerful web application framework

• initialises web applications, starts a server and provides optional modules for some features commonly needed for web projects
• similar perhaps to express.js
• status: should work. maintained as of 2019-04

minimal example

(import (sph web app) (sph web app http))

(define (app-respond request) (respond "test"))

(define swa-app (swa-app-new app-respond))

(swa-start swa-app #f #f swa-server-guile)

put the above in a file example.scm then

guile example.scm

see

listening on 127.0.0.1:6500
exit with ctrl+c

then take a browser and go to

http://127.0.0.1:6500

features

• reads configuration files, starts a server, passes request objects to handler procedures and transmits response objects
• protocol agnostic core: socket -> web-app -> socket
• pluggable server (thread-pool scgi, fibers scgi, direct http, none for testing ...)
• derivative environment configuration files in an s-expression format
• mostly functional, avoids side-effects. no "set!" used
• basic routing on any request property and url pattern matching
• the scgi servers are for use with a proxy like nginx for https, automatic chunked-encoding, fast file transfers, keep-alive, websockets, load-balancing, caching, general http robustness and more
• optional modules
  • http requests/responses
  • templating with s-expression versions of xml (sxml), css (plcss) and javascript (sescript)
  • asset processing: transcompilation, bundling, minification, compression, formatting, etc
• fast
  • plain vectors as records for request and response objects
  • response objects can have procedures that send data while it is generated
  • requests have little overhead as little data has to be prepared

documentation

web-app manual

an example project that combines sph-web-app with sph-web-publish: sph-info

dependencies

• guile
• sph-lib
• optional
  • sescript (for (sph web app client))

installation

• install all dependencies
• download
  • alternatives: git clone
• unpack the downloaded archive. for example with "tar -xf sph-web-app.tgz" (-x for extract, -f for the input file)

cd sph-web-app
su root
./exe/install

the installer is a shell script that copies files and sets filesystem permissions. the script can take one argument, the path prefix to install to

pacman package

for example using aurget

aurget -S --deps sph-web-app-git