ANN: 1.1 release of webserver library

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

This release standardises some terminology and method names,
and improves handling of overload situations (where more connections
come in than your software wants to handle).  It also increases the
default connection limits in the server.


Scope
====
This library provides a single main WebServer class which works with a
framework to support the use of loadable bundles to handle requests
on particular URLs.
The main of the library is to make it easy for you to write programs
which can act as web servers (eg. and XMLRPC server) or simply provide
a web-based user interface so that your application can be controlled
from a web browser.
Incoming requests may by handled by a delegate, or passed to a bundle
loaded at runtime on the basis of the URL requested.
Convenience methods are provided to vend static pages or vend template
pages where values provided by your code are inserted into the  
templates.
The class supports HTTPS on a unix-like platform, but only HTTP on  
windows.

Platforms
=========
GNUstep gnu/linux
GNUstep windows/mingw32


Contents
========
WebServer
The WebServer class provides the framework for a GNUstep program to act
as an HTTP or HTTPS server for simple applications.
It does not attempt to be a general-purpose web server, but is rather
intended to permit a program to easily handle requests from automated
systems which are intended to control, monitor, or use the services
provided by the program in which the class is embedded.
The emphasis is on making it robust/reliable/simple, so you can rapidly
develop software using it. It is a single-threaded, single-process
system using asynchronous I/O, so you can easily run it under debug
in gdb to fix any bugs in your delegate object.

The class is controlled by a few straightforward settings and basically
operates by handing over requests to its delegate. The delegate must at
least implement the [<WebServerDelegate>-processRequest:response:for:]
method.

 Built-in facilities include -

 * Parsing of parameter string in request URL
 * Parsing of url encoded form data in a POST request
 * Parsing of form encoded data in a POST request
 * Substitution into template pages on output
 * SSL support
 * HTTP Basic authentication
 * Limit access by IP address
 * Limit total number of simultaneous connections
 * Limit number of simultaneous connectionsform one address
 * Limit idle time permitted on a connection
 * Limit size of request headers permitted
 * Limit size of request body permitted

WebServerBundles

This is an example delegate for the WebServer class.
It is intended to act as a convenience for a scheme where the WebServer
instance in a program is configured by values obtained from the user
defaults system, and incoming requests may be handled by different
delegate objects depending on the path information supplied in the  
request.
The WebServerBundles intance is responsible for loading the bundles
(based on information in the WebServerBundles dictionary in the user  
defaults
system) and for forwarding requests to the appropriate bundles for  
processing.
If a request comes in which is not an exact match for the path of any  
handler,
the request path is repeatedly shortened by chopping off the last path
component until a matching handler is found.
The paths in the dictionary must not end with a slash... an empty string
will match all requests which do not match a handler with a longer path.


Location
========
Available from the gnustep subversion repository.

Browse at http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/gnustep/libs/webserver/tags/1.1.0

Download with:
svn co svn://svn.gna.org/svn/gnustep/libs/webserver/tags/1.1.0 webserver

Bugs
====
Please report bugs to https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=gnustep  
selecting
'Libraries' as the catagory.  NB. please check to see if a bug has  
already
been reported before submitting a new one.