=head1 DESCRIPTION
-The philosophy of Web::Simple is to keep to an absolute bare minimum, for
+The philosophy of L<Web::Simple> is to keep to an absolute bare minimum, for
everything. It is not designed to be used for large scale applications;
the L<Catalyst> web framework already works very nicely for that and is
a far more mature, well supported piece of software.
However, if you have an application that only does a couple of things, and
-want to not have to think about complexities of deployment, then Web::Simple
+want to not have to think about complexities of deployment, then L<Web::Simple>
might be just the thing for you.
The only public interface the Web::Simple module itself provides is an
use Web::Simple 'NameOfApplication';
-This imports 'strict' and 'warnings FATAL => "all"' into your code as well,
-so you can skip the usual:
+This setups up your package (in this case "NameOfApplication" is your package)
+so that it inherits from L<Web::Simple::Application> and imports L<strictures>,
+as well as installs a C<PSGI_ENV> constant for convenience, as well as some
+other subroutines.
+
+Importing L<strictures> will automatically make you code use the C<strict> and
+C<warnings> pragma, so you can skip the usual:
use strict;
- use warnings;
+ use warnings FATAL => 'aa';
provided you 'use Web::Simple' at the top of the file. Note that we turn
on *fatal* warnings so if you have any warnings at any point from the file
that you did 'use Web::Simple' in, then your application will die. This is,
so far, considered a feature.
-Calling the import also makes NameOfApplication isa Web::Simple::Application
-and sets your app class up as a L<Moo> class- i.e. does the equivalent of
+When we inherit from L<Web::Simple::Application> we also use <Moo>, which is
+the the equivalent of:
{
package NameOfApplication;
=head1 DISPATCH STRATEGY
+L<Web::Simple> dispite being straightforward to use, has a powerful system
+for matching all sorts of incoming URLs to one or more subroutines. These
+subroutines can be simple actions to take for a given URL, or something
+more complicated, including entire L<Plack> applications, L<Plack::Middleware>
+and nested subdispatchers.
+
=head2 Examples
sub dispatch_request {
You can also return a plain subroutine which will be called with just $env
- remember that in this case if you need $self you -must- close over it.
-If you return a normal object, Web::Simple will simply return it upwards on
-the assumption that a response_filter somewhere will convert it to something
-useful - this allows:
+If you return a normal object, L<Web::Simple> will simply return it upwards on
+the assumption that a response_filter (or some arbitrary L<Plack::Middleware>)
+somewhere will convert it to something useful. This allows:
sub dispatch_request {
my $self = shift;
sub (/user/*) { $self->users->get($_[1]) },
}
-to render a user object to HTML, for example.
+to render a user object to HTML, if there is an incoming URL such as:
+
+ http://myweb.org/user/111.html
+
+This works because as we descend down the dispachers, we first match
+C<sub (.html)>, which adds a C<response_filter> (basically a specialized routine
+that follows the L<Plack::Middleware> specification), and then later we also
+match C<sub (/user/*)> which gets a user and returns that as the response.
+This user object 'bubbles up' through all the wrapping middleware until it hits
+the C<response_filter> we defined, after which the return is converted to a
+true html response.
However, two types of object are treated specially - a Plack::App object
-will have its ->to_app method called and be used as a dispatcher:
+will have its C<->to_app> method called and be used as a dispatcher:
sub dispatch_request {
my $self = shift;
}
And that's it - but remember that all this happens recursively - it's
-dispatchers all the way down.
+dispatchers all the way down. A URL incoming pattern will run all matching
+dispatchers and then hit all added filters or L<Plack::Middleware>.
=head2 Web::Simple match specifications
one per non-:/* parameter (scalar for normal, arrayref for multiple),
plus if any :/* specs exist a hashref containing those values.
-So, to match a page parameter with an optional order_by parameter one
+Please note that if you specify a multiple type parameter match, you are
+ensured of getting an arrayref for the value, EVEN if the current incoming
+request has only one value. However if a parameter is specified as single
+and multiple values are found, the last one will be used.
+
+For example to match a page parameter with an optional order_by parameter one
would write:
sub (?page=&order_by~) {
to implement paging and ordering against a L<DBIx::Class::ResultSet> object.
-Note that if a parameter is specified as single and multiple values are found,
-the last one will be used.
-
-To get all parameters as a hashref of arrayrefs, write:
+Another Example: To get all parameters as a hashref of arrayrefs, write:
sub(?@*) {
my ($self, $params) = @_;
arrayref values for all parameters -not- mentioned and a scalar value for
the 'coffee' parameter.
+Note, in the case where you combine arrayref, single parameter and named
+hashref style, the arrayref and single parameters will appear in C<@_> in the
+order you defined them in the protoype, but all hashrefs will merge into a
+single C<$params>, as in the example above.
+
=head3 Combining matches
Matches may be combined with the + character - e.g.
sub (GET + (.html|POST) + .html) {
-which will never match.
+which will never match!
=head3 Whitespace
'/other/url', the dispatch behaviour will be exactly as if the same POST
request had been made to '/other/url' instead.
+Note, this is not the same as returning an HTTP 3xx redirect as a response;
+rather it is a much more efficient internal process.
+
=head1 CHANGES BETWEEN RELEASES
=head2 Changes between 0.004 and 0.005
projects / catagits/Web-Simple.git / blobdiff