c++ web scripting

[Shailesh Humbad]

Has anyone ever heard of a c++ web 'scripting' engine? I think it
would be fairly easy to make one. All that is needed is an
intermediary that compiles the code on demand and caches the executables.

For example, I put a file like hello.cpp:

#include <iostream>
int main(void) {
cout << "<h1>hello world</h1>";
}

in the web server directory, and when I point my browser to
http://localhost/hello.cpp, the c++ web 'scripting' engine compiles
the code on the fly and serves the output over http. It would work
just like CGI, except the compilation is automatic.

[John Harrison]

"Shailesh Humbad" <no*****@nowher e.com> wrote in message
news:RO******** *******@fe2.col umbus.rr.com...

Has anyone ever heard of a c++ web 'scripting' engine? I think it would
be fairly easy to make one. All that is needed is an intermediary that
compiles the code on demand and caches the executables.

For example, I put a file like hello.cpp:

#include <iostream>
int main(void) {
cout << "<h1>hello world</h1>";
}

in the web server directory, and when I point my browser to
http://localhost/hello.cpp, the c++ web 'scripting' engine compiles the
code on the fly and serves the output over http. It would work just like
CGI, except the compilation is automatic.

It would be easy to setup a web server to do that. Your 'scripting engine'
is just the compiler followed by running the program.

john

[Phlip]

Shailesh Humbad wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of a c++ web 'scripting' engine?
cgicc. It works great.
I think it
would be fairly easy to make one. All that is needed is an
intermediary that compiles the code on demand and caches the executables.

Wha? What's wrong with just configuring your CGI to call your .EXE or
binary? I done all this, last millenium.

--
Phlip
http://industrialxp.org/community/bi...UserInterfaces

[one2001boy]

Shailesh Humbad wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of a c++ web 'scripting' engine? I think it would
be fairly easy to make one. All that is needed is an intermediary that
compiles the code on demand and caches the executables.

For example, I put a file like hello.cpp:

#include <iostream>
int main(void) {
cout << "<h1>hello world</h1>";
}

in the web server directory, and when I point my browser to
http://localhost/hello.cpp, the c++ web 'scripting' engine compiles the
for CGI, it won't work this way for your above code.
code on the fly and serves the output over http. It would work just
like CGI, except the compilation is automatic.

C++ cgi code can already work with C/C++ interpreter Ch.

[Owen Jacobson]

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 07:34:40 +0000, Phlip wrote:

Shailesh Humbad wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of a c++ web 'scripting' engine?

cgicc. It works great.

Seconded. cgicc works way better if you want it to output compliant HTML
than if you want "normal" (nonstandard, table-driven, or otherwise
silly) HTML, though. IMO this is a feature, though from the mailing list I
seem to be in the minority.

--
Some say the Wired doesn't have political borders like the real world,
but there are far too many nonsense-spouting anarchists or idiots who
think that pranks are a revolution.

[Tommi Mäkitalo]

Shailesh Humbad wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of a c++ web 'scripting' engine? I think it
would be fairly easy to make one. All that is needed is an
intermediary that compiles the code on demand and caches the executables.

For example, I put a file like hello.cpp:

#include <iostream>
int main(void) {
cout << "<h1>hello world</h1>";
}

in the web server directory, and when I point my browser to
http://localhost/hello.cpp, the c++ web 'scripting' engine compiles
the code on the fly and serves the output over http. It would work
just like CGI, except the compilation is automatic.

Hi,

I have written a webapplications erver in c++, which supports c++. I defined
a template-language like PHP, JSP or Mason for c++, so you can embed
c++-code in HTML-pages. It much faster than cgi, because there is no need
to start a process for each request. Even dynamic pages with this system
are faster than static pages in apache.

Here is a example of a dynamic web-page:

<%args>
some_text // define query-parameter here
</%args>
<html>
<body>
<# this is a comment, which is precompiled away #>
<{
// do some c++-coding here:
for (unsigned i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
{
// output the value of the query-param "some_text" 10 times:
}>
<p> <$ i $> : <$ some_text $> </p>
<{
} // end of for-loop
}>
</body>
</html>
__END__

The tags <$ ... $> outputs a c++-expression. Everything here is written to a
std::ostream, so you can output every object which has a
"operator<<(std ::ostream&)" defined.

There are many more features like embedding other c++-components or special
tags for initialization or support for i18n.

I would like to release it under the GPL, but it lacks documentation yet.
What I have is a short introduction as a word-document written in german.
If someone is interested in helping, let me know.

It would be also nice to hear comments.
Tommi Mäkitalo

[Shailesh Humbad]

Tommi Mäkitalo wrote:

Shailesh Humbad wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of a c++ web 'scripting' engine? I think it
would be fairly easy to make one. All that is needed is an
intermediar y that compiles the code on demand and caches the executables.

For example, I put a file like hello.cpp:

#include <iostream>
int main(void) {
cout << "<h1>hello world</h1>";
}

in the web server directory, and when I point my browser to
http://localhost/hello.cpp, the c++ web 'scripting' engine compiles
the code on the fly and serves the output over http. It would work
just like CGI, except the compilation is automatic.

Hi,

I have written a webapplications erver in c++, which supports c++. I defined
a template-language like PHP, JSP or Mason for c++, so you can embed
c++-code in HTML-pages. It much faster than cgi, because there is no need
to start a process for each request. Even dynamic pages with this system
are faster than static pages in apache.

Here is a example of a dynamic web-page:

<%args>
some_text // define query-parameter here
</%args>
<html>
<body>
<# this is a comment, which is precompiled away #>
<{
// do some c++-coding here:
for (unsigned i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
{
// output the value of the query-param "some_text" 10 times:
}>
<p> <$ i $> : <$ some_text $> </p>
<{
} // end of for-loop
}>
</body>
</html>
__END__

The tags <$ ... $> outputs a c++-expression. Everything here is written to a
std::ostream, so you can output every object which has a
"operator<<(std ::ostream&)" defined.

There are many more features like embedding other c++-components or special
tags for initialization or support for i18n.

I would like to release it under the GPL, but it lacks documentation yet.
What I have is a short introduction as a word-document written in german.
If someone is interested in helping, let me know.

It would be also nice to hear comments.
Tommi Mäkitalo

Hi Tommi,

This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm so surprised nothing like
this already exists. If you think about it, .Net's "new and improved"
approach toward web applications is to compile the code on request,
and keep the compiled object code in a cache. However, .Net does not
compile to native code, but to an intermediate language, which adds
overhead. We were so busy with ASP, PHP, and other scripting
languages, that we only now realized we can use C++ directly and just
have the server compile it on the fly.

I understand that CGI is slow because of the need to create new
processes. I'd be interested to understand your implementation and
try it out.

My initial comment is that you have three different kinds of
delimeters, <{, <#, and <$. ASP uses <% while PHP uses <?. I think
the easiest to type is the last one, <?, because it only involves the
left-shift key with the left hand, and the lower, easily-reachable "?"
key with the right hand. Also, I'm not sure there is a need for
multiple kinds of delimeters. In ASP, when you want to print out a
value, you write <% =some_var %>, and it has no equivalent shortcut
for comments. PHP has no equivalent for either comments or printing
values, although you can leave out the semicolon for single line
statements, e.g. <?php print "hello" ?>. Now by default in PHP, the
opening tag is required to be <?php. Maybe you can use something like
this for your engine, like <?tomi ?>, and use standard commenting
paradigms for comments and values, like <?tomi /* this is comments */
?> and <?tomi cout << "hello"; ?>. These are just suggestions.

Shailesh

[Shailesh Humbad]

Owen Jacobson wrote:

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 07:34:40 +0000, Phlip wrote:

Shailesh Humbad wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of a c++ web 'scripting' engine?

cgicc. It works great.

Seconded. cgicc works way better if you want it to output compliant HTML
than if you want "normal" (nonstandard, table-driven, or otherwise
silly) HTML, though. IMO this is a feature, though from the mailing list I
seem to be in the minority.

(I posted this a few days ago, but it went to alt.html by accident.)

I tried cgicc prior to posting. The difference is the application
development cycle. I assume there are three steps with cgicc: edit
the code, run the compiler, and then reload the browser. When I say
scripting engine, I mean that there are only two steps: edit the code,
and reload the browser.

I see ch is an interpreter for a superset of C (with classes from
C++), but not full C++. Not only that, but I don't want
interpretation, I want cached, natively-compiled executables.

Like another poster said, it would be fairly easy to implement such a
thing. I'm just surprised it hasn't yet. Why use .Net for your web
projects when you can use C++, and skip the extra layer of complexity?

[Phlip]

Shailesh Humbad wrote:

I tried cgicc prior to posting. The difference is the application
development cycle. I assume there are three steps with cgicc: edit
the code, run the compiler, and then reload the browser. When I say
scripting engine, I mean that there are only two steps: edit the code,
and reload the browser.

I see ch is an interpreter for a superset of C (with classes from
C++), but not full C++. Not only that, but I don't want
interpretation, I want cached, natively-compiled executables.

Like another poster said, it would be fairly easy to implement such a
thing. I'm just surprised it hasn't yet. Why use .Net for your web
projects when you can use C++, and skip the extra layer of complexity?
Why should C++ recompile between two page hits?

You need to think about routing data strictly thru XML and XSLT in XHTML
output mode. Then, regardless of the language substrate, you have templates
in a widely supported template language. Not a system that lets you couple
HTML to C++ in elaborate ways.

--
Phlip
http://industrialxp.org/community/bi...UserInterfaces

[David Hilsee]

"Shailesh Humbad" <no*****@nowher e.com> wrote in message
news:Qm******** **********@fe1. columbus.rr.com ...

Tommi Mäkitalo wrote:

Shailesh Humbad wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of a c++ web 'scripting' engine? I think it
would be fairly easy to make one. All that is needed is an
intermediar y that compiles the code on demand and caches the executables.
For example, I put a file like hello.cpp:

#include <iostream>
int main(void) {
cout << "<h1>hello world</h1>";
}

in the web server directory, and when I point my browser to
http://localhost/hello.cpp, the c++ web 'scripting' engine compiles
the code on the fly and serves the output over http. It would work
just like CGI, except the compilation is automatic.

Hi,

I have written a webapplications erver in c++, which supports c++. I defined a template-language like PHP, JSP or Mason for c++, so you can embed
c++-code in HTML-pages. It much faster than cgi, because there is no need to start a process for each request. Even dynamic pages with this system
are faster than static pages in apache.

Here is a example of a dynamic web-page:

<%args>
some_text // define query-parameter here
</%args>
<html>
<body>
<# this is a comment, which is precompiled away #>
<{
// do some c++-coding here:
for (unsigned i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
{
// output the value of the query-param "some_text" 10 times:
}>
<p> <$ i $> : <$ some_text $> </p>
<{
} // end of for-loop
}>
</body>
</html>
__END__

The tags <$ ... $> outputs a c++-expression. Everything here is written to a std::ostream, so you can output every object which has a
"operator<<(std ::ostream&)" defined.

There are many more features like embedding other c++-components or special tags for initialization or support for i18n.

I would like to release it under the GPL, but it lacks documentation yet. What I have is a short introduction as a word-document written in german. If someone is interested in helping, let me know.

It would be also nice to hear comments.
Tommi Mäkitalo

Hi Tommi,

This is exactly what I was looking for. I'm so surprised nothing like
this already exists. If you think about it, .Net's "new and improved"
approach toward web applications is to compile the code on request,
and keep the compiled object code in a cache. However, .Net does not
compile to native code, but to an intermediate language, which adds
overhead. We were so busy with ASP, PHP, and other scripting
languages, that we only now realized we can use C++ directly and just
have the server compile it on the fly.

<snip>

Doesn't .Net provide one or two good ways to use C++ code inside a .Net
application? If not P/Invoke, then at least using "unsafe"? Then, if you
go with .Net, you could choose between higher-level languages and C++
depending on your needs.

--
David Hilsee