xref: /dports/www/cpp-httplib/cpp-httplib-0.10.0/README.md

cpp-httplib
===========

[![](https://github.com/yhirose/cpp-httplib/workflows/test/badge.svg)](https://github.com/yhirose/cpp-httplib/actions)

A C++11 single-file header-only cross platform HTTP/HTTPS library.

It's extremely easy to setup. Just include the **httplib.h** file in your code!

NOTE: This is a multi-threaded 'blocking' HTTP library. If you are looking for a 'non-blocking' library, this is not the one that you want.

Simple examples
---------------

#### Server

```c++
#define CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT
#include "path/to/httplib.h"

// HTTP
httplib::Server svr;

// HTTPS
httplib::SSLServer svr;

svr.Get("/hi", [](const httplib::Request &, httplib::Response &res) {
  res.set_content("Hello World!", "text/plain");
});

svr.listen("0.0.0.0", 8080);
```

#### Client

```c++
#define CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT
#include "path/to/httplib.h"

// HTTP
httplib::Client cli("http://cpp-httplib-server.yhirose.repl.co");

// HTTPS
httplib::Client cli("https://cpp-httplib-server.yhirose.repl.co");

auto res = cli.Get("/hi");
res->status;
res->body;
```

### Try out the examples on Repl.it!

1. Run server at https://repl.it/@yhirose/cpp-httplib-server
2. Run client at https://repl.it/@yhirose/cpp-httplib-client

SSL Support
-----------

SSL support is available with `CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT`. `libssl` and `libcrypto` should be linked.

NOTE: cpp-httplib currently supports only version 1.1.1.

```c++
#define CPPHTTPLIB_OPENSSL_SUPPORT
#include "path/to/httplib.h"

// Server
httplib::SSLServer svr("./cert.pem", "./key.pem");

// Client
httplib::Client cli("https://localhost:1234"); // scheme + host
httplib::SSLClient cli("localhost:1234"); // host

// Use your CA bundle
cli.set_ca_cert_path("./ca-bundle.crt");

// Disable cert verification
cli.enable_server_certificate_verification(false);
```

Note: When using SSL, it seems impossible to avoid SIGPIPE in all cases, since on some operating systems, SIGPIPE can only be suppressed on a per-message basis, but there is no way to make the OpenSSL library do so for its internal communications. If your program needs to avoid being terminated on SIGPIPE, the only fully general way might be to set up a signal handler for SIGPIPE to handle or ignore it yourself.

Server
------

```c++
#include <httplib.h>

int main(void)
{
  using namespace httplib;

  Server svr;

  svr.Get("/hi", [](const Request& req, Response& res) {
    res.set_content("Hello World!", "text/plain");
  });

  svr.Get(R"(/numbers/(\d+))", [&](const Request& req, Response& res) {
    auto numbers = req.matches[1];
    res.set_content(numbers, "text/plain");
  });

  svr.Get("/body-header-param", [](const Request& req, Response& res) {
    if (req.has_header("Content-Length")) {
      auto val = req.get_header_value("Content-Length");
    }
    if (req.has_param("key")) {
      auto val = req.get_param_value("key");
    }
    res.set_content(req.body, "text/plain");
  });

  svr.Get("/stop", [&](const Request& req, Response& res) {
    svr.stop();
  });

  svr.listen("localhost", 1234);
}
```

`Post`, `Put`, `Delete` and `Options` methods are also supported.

### Bind a socket to multiple interfaces and any available port

```cpp
int port = svr.bind_to_any_port("0.0.0.0");
svr.listen_after_bind();
```

### Static File Server

```cpp
// Mount / to ./www directory
auto ret = svr.set_mount_point("/", "./www");
if (!ret) {
  // The specified base directory doesn't exist...
}

// Mount /public to ./www directory
ret = svr.set_mount_point("/public", "./www");

// Mount /public to ./www1 and ./www2 directories
ret = svr.set_mount_point("/public", "./www1"); // 1st order to search
ret = svr.set_mount_point("/public", "./www2"); // 2nd order to search

// Remove mount /
ret = svr.remove_mount_point("/");

// Remove mount /public
ret = svr.remove_mount_point("/public");
```

```cpp
// User defined file extension and MIME type mappings
svr.set_file_extension_and_mimetype_mapping("cc", "text/x-c");
svr.set_file_extension_and_mimetype_mapping("cpp", "text/x-c");
svr.set_file_extension_and_mimetype_mapping("hh", "text/x-h");
```

The followings are built-in mappings:

| Extension  |          MIME Type          | Extension  |          MIME Type          |
| :--------- | :-------------------------- | :--------- | :-------------------------- |
| css        | text/css                    | mpga       | audio/mpeg                  |
| csv        | text/csv                    | weba       | audio/webm                  |
| txt        | text/plain                  | wav        | audio/wave                  |
| vtt        | text/vtt                    | otf        | font/otf                    |
| html, htm  | text/html                   | ttf        | font/ttf                    |
| apng       | image/apng                  | woff       | font/woff                   |
| avif       | image/avif                  | woff2      | font/woff2                  |
| bmp        | image/bmp                   | 7z         | application/x-7z-compressed |
| gif        | image/gif                   | atom       | application/atom+xml        |
| png        | image/png                   | pdf        | application/pdf             |
| svg        | image/svg+xml               | mjs, js    | application/javascript      |
| webp       | image/webp                  | json       | application/json            |
| ico        | image/x-icon                | rss        | application/rss+xml         |
| tif        | image/tiff                  | tar        | application/x-tar           |
| tiff       | image/tiff                  | xhtml, xht | application/xhtml+xml       |
| jpeg, jpg  | image/jpeg                  | xslt       | application/xslt+xml        |
| mp4        | video/mp4                   | xml        | application/xml             |
| mpeg       | video/mpeg                  | gz         | application/gzip            |
| webm       | video/webm                  | zip        | application/zip             |
| mp3        | audio/mp3                   | wasm       | application/wasm            |

NOTE: These static file server methods are not thread-safe.

### Logging

```cpp
svr.set_logger([](const auto& req, const auto& res) {
  your_logger(req, res);
});
```

### Error handler

```cpp
svr.set_error_handler([](const auto& req, auto& res) {
  auto fmt = "<p>Error Status: <span style='color:red;'>%d</span></p>";
  char buf[BUFSIZ];
  snprintf(buf, sizeof(buf), fmt, res.status);
  res.set_content(buf, "text/html");
});
```

### Exception handler
The exception handler gets called if a user routing handler throws an error.

```cpp
svr.set_exception_handler([](const auto& req, auto& res, std::exception &e) {
  res.status = 500;
  auto fmt = "<h1>Error 500</h1><p>%s</p>";
  char buf[BUFSIZ];
  snprintf(buf, sizeof(buf), fmt, e.what());
  res.set_content(buf, "text/html");
});
```

### Pre routing handler

```cpp
svr.set_pre_routing_handler([](const auto& req, auto& res) {
  if (req.path == "/hello") {
    res.set_content("world", "text/html");
    return Server::HandlerResponse::Handled;
  }
  return Server::HandlerResponse::Unhandled;
});
```

### Post routing handler

```cpp
svr.set_post_routing_handler([](const auto& req, auto& res) {
  res.set_header("ADDITIONAL_HEADER", "value");
});
```

### 'multipart/form-data' POST data

```cpp
svr.Post("/multipart", [&](const auto& req, auto& res) {
  auto size = req.files.size();
  auto ret = req.has_file("name1");
  const auto& file = req.get_file_value("name1");
  // file.filename;
  // file.content_type;
  // file.content;
});
```

### Receive content with a content receiver

```cpp
svr.Post("/content_receiver",
  [&](const Request &req, Response &res, const ContentReader &content_reader) {
    if (req.is_multipart_form_data()) {
      // NOTE: `content_reader` is blocking until every form data field is read
      MultipartFormDataItems files;
      content_reader(
        [&](const MultipartFormData &file) {
          files.push_back(file);
          return true;
        },
        [&](const char *data, size_t data_length) {
          files.back().content.append(data, data_length);
          return true;
        });
    } else {
      std::string body;
      content_reader([&](const char *data, size_t data_length) {
        body.append(data, data_length);
        return true;
      });
    }
  });
```

### Send content with the content provider

```cpp
const size_t DATA_CHUNK_SIZE = 4;

svr.Get("/stream", [&](const Request &req, Response &res) {
  auto data = new std::string("abcdefg");

  res.set_content_provider(
    data->size(), // Content length
    "text/plain", // Content type
    [data](size_t offset, size_t length, DataSink &sink) {
      const auto &d = *data;
      sink.write(&d[offset], std::min(length, DATA_CHUNK_SIZE));
      return true; // return 'false' if you want to cancel the process.
    },
    [data](bool success) { delete data; });
});
```

Without content length:

```cpp
svr.Get("/stream", [&](const Request &req, Response &res) {
  res.set_content_provider(
    "text/plain", // Content type
    [&](size_t offset, size_t length, DataSink &sink) {
      if (/* there is still data */) {
        std::vector<char> data;
        // prepare data...
        sink.write(data.data(), data.size());
      } else {
        sink.done(); // No more data
      }
      return true; // return 'false' if you want to cancel the process.
    });
});
```

### Chunked transfer encoding

```cpp
svr.Get("/chunked", [&](const Request& req, Response& res) {
  res.set_chunked_content_provider(
    "text/plain",
    [](size_t offset, DataSink &sink) {
      sink.write("123", 3);
      sink.write("345", 3);
      sink.write("789", 3);
      sink.done(); // No more data
      return true; // return 'false' if you want to cancel the process.
    }
  );
});
```

### 'Expect: 100-continue' handler

By default, the server sends a `100 Continue` response for an `Expect: 100-continue` header.

```cpp
// Send a '417 Expectation Failed' response.
svr.set_expect_100_continue_handler([](const Request &req, Response &res) {
  return 417;
});
```

```cpp
// Send a final status without reading the message body.
svr.set_expect_100_continue_handler([](const Request &req, Response &res) {
  return res.status = 401;
});
```

### Keep-Alive connection

```cpp
svr.set_keep_alive_max_count(2); // Default is 5
svr.set_keep_alive_timeout(10);  // Default is 5
```

### Timeout

```c++
svr.set_read_timeout(5, 0); // 5 seconds
svr.set_write_timeout(5, 0); // 5 seconds
svr.set_idle_interval(0, 100000); // 100 milliseconds
```

### Set maximum payload length for reading a request body

```c++
svr.set_payload_max_length(1024 * 1024 * 512); // 512MB
```

### Server-Sent Events

Please see [Server example](https://github.com/yhirose/cpp-httplib/blob/master/example/ssesvr.cc) and [Client example](https://github.com/yhirose/cpp-httplib/blob/master/example/ssecli.cc).

### Default thread pool support

`ThreadPool` is used as a **default** task queue, and the default thread count is 8, or `std::thread::hardware_concurrency()`. You can change it with `CPPHTTPLIB_THREAD_POOL_COUNT`.

If you want to set the thread count at runtime, there is no convenient way... But here is how.

```cpp
svr.new_task_queue = [] { return new ThreadPool(12); };
```

### Override the default thread pool with yours

You can supply your own thread pool implementation according to your need.

```cpp
class YourThreadPoolTaskQueue : public TaskQueue {
public:
  YourThreadPoolTaskQueue(size_t n) {
    pool_.start_with_thread_count(n);
  }

  virtual void enqueue(std::function<void()> fn) override {
    pool_.enqueue(fn);
  }

  virtual void shutdown() override {
    pool_.shutdown_gracefully();
  }

private:
  YourThreadPool pool_;
};

svr.new_task_queue = [] {
  return new YourThreadPoolTaskQueue(12);
};
```

Client
------

```c++
#include <httplib.h>
#include <iostream>

int main(void)
{
  httplib::Client cli("localhost", 1234);

  if (auto res = cli.Get("/hi")) {
    if (res->status == 200) {
      std::cout << res->body << std::endl;
    }
  } else {
    auto err = res.error();
    ...
  }
}
```

NOTE: Constructor with scheme-host-port string is now supported!

```c++
httplib::Client cli("localhost");
httplib::Client cli("localhost:8080");
httplib::Client cli("http://localhost");
httplib::Client cli("http://localhost:8080");
httplib::Client cli("https://localhost");
httplib::SSLClient cli("localhost");
```

### Error code

Here is the list of errors from `Result::error()`.

```c++
enum Error {
  Success = 0,
  Unknown,
  Connection,
  BindIPAddress,
  Read,
  Write,
  ExceedRedirectCount,
  Canceled,
  SSLConnection,
  SSLLoadingCerts,
  SSLServerVerification,
  UnsupportedMultipartBoundaryChars
};
```

### GET with HTTP headers

```c++
httplib::Headers headers = {
  { "Accept-Encoding", "gzip, deflate" }
};
auto res = cli.Get("/hi", headers);
```
or
```c++
cli.set_default_headers({
  { "Accept-Encoding", "gzip, deflate" }
});
auto res = cli.Get("/hi");
```

### POST

```c++
res = cli.Post("/post", "text", "text/plain");
res = cli.Post("/person", "name=john1&note=coder", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
```

### POST with parameters

```c++
httplib::Params params;
params.emplace("name", "john");
params.emplace("note", "coder");

auto res = cli.Post("/post", params);
```
 or

```c++
httplib::Params params{
  { "name", "john" },
  { "note", "coder" }
};

auto res = cli.Post("/post", params);
```

### POST with Multipart Form Data

```c++
httplib::MultipartFormDataItems items = {
  { "text1", "text default", "", "" },
  { "text2", "aωb", "", "" },
  { "file1", "h\ne\n\nl\nl\no\n", "hello.txt", "text/plain" },
  { "file2", "{\n  \"world\", true\n}\n", "world.json", "application/json" },
  { "file3", "", "", "application/octet-stream" },
};

auto res = cli.Post("/multipart", items);
```

### PUT

```c++
res = cli.Put("/resource/foo", "text", "text/plain");
```

### DELETE

```c++
res = cli.Delete("/resource/foo");
```

### OPTIONS

```c++
res = cli.Options("*");
res = cli.Options("/resource/foo");
```

### Timeout

```c++
cli.set_connection_timeout(0, 300000); // 300 milliseconds
cli.set_read_timeout(5, 0); // 5 seconds
cli.set_write_timeout(5, 0); // 5 seconds
```

### Receive content with a content receiver

```c++
std::string body;

auto res = cli.Get("/large-data",
  [&](const char *data, size_t data_length) {
    body.append(data, data_length);
    return true;
  });
```

```cpp
std::string body;

auto res = cli.Get(
  "/stream", Headers(),
  [&](const Response &response) {
    EXPECT_EQ(200, response.status);
    return true; // return 'false' if you want to cancel the request.
  },
  [&](const char *data, size_t data_length) {
    body.append(data, data_length);
    return true; // return 'false' if you want to cancel the request.
  });
```

### Send content with a content provider

```cpp
std::string body = ...;

auto res = cli.Post(
  "/stream", body.size(),
  [](size_t offset, size_t length, DataSink &sink) {
    sink.write(body.data() + offset, length);
    return true; // return 'false' if you want to cancel the request.
  },
  "text/plain");
```

### Chunked transfer encoding

```cpp
auto res = cli.Post(
  "/stream",
  [](size_t offset, DataSink &sink) {
    sink.os << "chunked data 1";
    sink.os << "chunked data 2";
    sink.os << "chunked data 3";
    sink.done();
    return true; // return 'false' if you want to cancel the request.
  },
  "text/plain");
```

### With Progress Callback

```cpp
httplib::Client client(url, port);

// prints: 0 / 000 bytes => 50% complete
auto res = cli.Get("/", [](uint64_t len, uint64_t total) {
  printf("%lld / %lld bytes => %d%% complete\n",
    len, total,
    (int)(len*100/total));
  return true; // return 'false' if you want to cancel the request.
}
);
```

![progress](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/236374/33138910-495c4ecc-cf86-11e7-8693-2fc6d09615c4.gif)

### Authentication

```cpp
// Basic Authentication
cli.set_basic_auth("user", "pass");

// Digest Authentication
cli.set_digest_auth("user", "pass");

// Bearer Token Authentication
cli.set_bearer_token_auth("token");
```

NOTE: OpenSSL is required for Digest Authentication.

### Proxy server support

```cpp
cli.set_proxy("host", port);

// Basic Authentication
cli.set_proxy_basic_auth("user", "pass");

// Digest Authentication
cli.set_proxy_digest_auth("user", "pass");

// Bearer Token Authentication
cli.set_proxy_bearer_token_auth("pass");
```

NOTE: OpenSSL is required for Digest Authentication.

### Range

```cpp
httplib::Client cli("httpbin.org");

auto res = cli.Get("/range/32", {
  httplib::make_range_header({{1, 10}}) // 'Range: bytes=1-10'
});
// res->status should be 206.
// res->body should be "bcdefghijk".
```

```cpp
httplib::make_range_header({{1, 10}, {20, -1}})      // 'Range: bytes=1-10, 20-'
httplib::make_range_header({{100, 199}, {500, 599}}) // 'Range: bytes=100-199, 500-599'
httplib::make_range_header({{0, 0}, {-1, 1}})        // 'Range: bytes=0-0, -1'
```

### Keep-Alive connection

```cpp
httplib::Client cli("localhost", 1234);

cli.Get("/hello");         // with "Connection: close"

cli.set_keep_alive(true);
cli.Get("/world");

cli.set_keep_alive(false);
cli.Get("/last-request");  // with "Connection: close"
```

### Redirect

```cpp
httplib::Client cli("yahoo.com");

auto res = cli.Get("/");
res->status; // 301

cli.set_follow_location(true);
res = cli.Get("/");
res->status; // 200
```

### Use a specific network interface

NOTE: This feature is not available on Windows, yet.

```cpp
cli.set_interface("eth0"); // Interface name, IP address or host name
```

Compression
-----------

The server can apply compression to the following MIME type contents:

  * all text types except text/event-stream
  * image/svg+xml
  * application/javascript
  * application/json
  * application/xml
  * application/xhtml+xml

### Zlib Support

'gzip' compression is available with `CPPHTTPLIB_ZLIB_SUPPORT`. `libz` should be linked.

### Brotli Support

Brotli compression is available with `CPPHTTPLIB_BROTLI_SUPPORT`. Necessary libraries should be linked.
Please see https://github.com/google/brotli for more detail.

### Compress request body on client

```c++
cli.set_compress(true);
res = cli.Post("/resource/foo", "...", "text/plain");
```

### Compress response body on client

```c++
cli.set_decompress(false);
res = cli.Get("/resource/foo", {{"Accept-Encoding", "gzip, deflate, br"}});
res->body; // Compressed data
```

Use `poll` instead of `select`
------------------------------

`select` system call is used as default since it's more widely supported. If you want to let cpp-httplib use `poll` instead, you can do so with `CPPHTTPLIB_USE_POLL`.


Split httplib.h into .h and .cc
-------------------------------

```console
$ ./split.py -h
usage: split.py [-h] [-e EXTENSION] [-o OUT]

This script splits httplib.h into .h and .cc parts.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -e EXTENSION, --extension EXTENSION
                        extension of the implementation file (default: cc)
  -o OUT, --out OUT     where to write the files (default: out)

$ ./split.py
Wrote out/httplib.h and out/httplib.cc
```

NOTE
----

### g++

g++ 4.8 and below cannot build this library since `<regex>` in the versions are [broken](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12530406/is-gcc-4-8-or-earlier-buggy-about-regular-expressions).

### Windows

Include `httplib.h` before `Windows.h` or include `Windows.h` by defining `WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN` beforehand.

```cpp
#include <httplib.h>
#include <Windows.h>
```

```cpp
#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#include <Windows.h>
#include <httplib.h>
```

Note: cpp-httplib officially supports only the latest Visual Studio. It might work with former versions of Visual Studio, but I can no longer verify it. Pull requests are always welcome for the older versions of Visual Studio unless they break the C++11 conformance.

Note: Windows 8 or lower and Cygwin on Windows are not supported.

License
-------

MIT license (© 2021 Yuji Hirose)

Special Thanks To
-----------------

[These folks](https://github.com/yhirose/cpp-httplib/graphs/contributors) made great contributions to polish this library to totally another level from a simple toy!