blackbird-server v0.1.0
Blackbird is an HTTP server that runs on Node (ES6+). It has the following goals:
- Simplicity: straightforward mapping of HTTP requests to JavaScript function calls
- Asynchronous: responses can be deferred using Promises/A+ promises
- Streaming: request and response bodies can be streamed
- Composability: middleware composes easily using promises
- Robustness: promises propagate errors up the call stack, simplifying error handling
Servers
Writing a "Hello world" HTTP server in BB is simple.
let BB = require('blackbird-server');
BB.serve(function (conn) {
return "Hello world!";
});
All Blackbird applications receive a single argument: a Connection object. This object contains information about both the request and the response, as well as metadata including the method
used in the request, the location of the request, the status
of the response, and some helper methods.
Applications can send responses asynchronously using JavaScript promises. Simply return a promise from your app that resolves when the response is ready.
let app = BB.stack();
app.use(BB.logger);
app.get('/users/:id', function (conn) {
let id = conn.params.id;
return getUser(id).then(function (user) {
conn.json(200, user);
});
});
The call to app.use
above illustrates how middleware is used to compose applications. BB ships with the following middleware:
BB.basicAuth
: Provides authentication using HTTP Basic authBB.catch
: Error handling at any position in the stackBB.charset
: Provides a default charset in responsesBB.contentType
: Provides a defaultContent-Type
BB.favicon
: Handles requests for/favicon.ico
BB.file
: Efficiently serves static filesBB.gzip
: Gzip-encodes response content for clients thatAccept: gzip
BB.logger
: Logs HTTP requests to the consoleBB.mapper
: Provides virtual host mapping, similar to Apache's Virtual Hosts or nginx server blocksBB.methodOverride
: Overrides the HTTP method used in the request, for clients (like HTML forms) that don't support methods other thanGET
andPOST
BB.modified
: HTTP caching usingLast-Modified
andETag
BB.params
: Multipart request parsing and handlingBB.proxy
: Proxy request through to an alternate locationBB.rewrite
: Rewrites request URLs on the fly, similar to Apache's mod_rewriteBB.router
: Request routing (ala Sinatra) based on the URL pathnameBB.session
: HTTP sessions with pluggable storage including memory (for development and testing), cookies, and RedisBB.stack
: Provides ause
mechanism for composing applications fronted by middlewareBB.token
: Cross-site request forgery protection
Proxies
Because all BB applications share the same signature, it's easy to combine them in interesting ways. BB's HTTP proxy implementation illustrates this beautifully: a proxy is simply an application that forwards the request somewhere else.
let proxyApp = BB.createProxy('http://twitter.com');
// In a server environment we can use the BB.proxy middleware
// to proxy all requests to the proxy's location.
app.use(BB.proxy, proxyApp);
// In a client application we can call the proxy directly to
// send a request to the proxy's location.
BB.post(proxyApp, {
params: {
username: 'bkeown'
}
});
Installation
Using npm:
$ npm install blackbird
Issues
Please file issues on the issue tracker on GitHub.
Tests
To run the tests in node:
$ npm install
$ npm test
The Redis session store tests rely on Redis to run successfully. By default they are skipped, but if you want to run them fire up a Redis server on the default host and port and set the $WITH_REDIS
environment variable.
$ WITH_REDIS=1 npm test
To run the tests in Chrome:
$ npm install
$ npm run test-browser