YAWS_API(5)

NAME
yaws_api - api available to yaws web server programmers

SYNOPSIS
yaws_api:Function(...)

DESCRIPTION

This is the api available to yaws web server programmers. The Erlang module yaws_api contains a wide variety of functions that can be used inside yaws pages.

Each chunk of yaws code is executed while the yaws page is being delivered from the server. We give a very simple example here to show the basic idea. Imagine the following HTML code:

<html>
<body>

<h1> Header 1</h1>

<erl>
out(Arg) ->
    {html, "<p> Insert this text into the document"}.
</erl>

</body>
</html>

The out(Arg) function is supplied one argument, an #arg{} structure. We have the following relevant record definitions:

-record(arg, {
          clisock,        %% the socket leading to the peer client
          client_ip_port, %% {ClientIp, ClientPort} tuple
          headers,        %% headers
          req,            %% request
          clidata,        %% The client data (as a binary in POST requests)
          server_path,    %% The normalized server path
          querydata,      %% Was the URL on the form of ...?query (GET reqs)
          appmoddata,     %% the remainder of the path up to the query
          docroot,        %% where's the data
          fullpath,       %% full path to yaws file
          cont,                  %% Continuation for chunked multipart uploads
          state,          %% State for use by users of the out/1 callback
          pid,            %% pid of the yaws worker process
          opaque,         %% useful to pass static data
          appmod_prepath, %% path in front of: <appmod><appmoddata>
          pathinfo        %% Set to 'd/e' when calling c.yaws for the request
                          %% http://some.host/a/b/c.yaws/d/e
         }).

The headers argument is also a record:

-record(headers, {
          connection,
          accept,
          host,
          if_modified_since,
          if_match,
          if_none_match,
          if_range,
          if_unmodified_since,
          range,
          referer,
          user_agent,
          accept_ranges,
          cookie = [],
          keep_alive,
          content_length,
          authorization,
          other = []   %% misc other headers
         }).

it likes. We have the following functions to aid that generation.

API

ssi(DocRoot, ListOfFiles)
    Server side include. Just include the files as is in the document. The files will not be parsed and searched for <erl> tags.

pre_ssi_files(DocRoot, ListOfFiles) ->
    Server side include of pre indented code. The data in Files will be included but contained in a <pre> tag. The data will be htmlized.

pre_ssi_string(String)
    Include htmlized content from String.

f(Fmt, Args)
    The equivalent of io_lib:format/2. This function is automatically -included in all erlang code which is a part of a yaws page.

htmlize(Binary | List | Char)
    Htmlize an IO list object.

setcookie(Name, Value, [Path, [ Expire, [Domain , [Secure]]]])
    Sets a cookie to the browser.

find_cookie_val(Cookie, Header)
    This function can be used to search for a cookie that was previously set by setcookie/2-6. For example if we set a cookie as yaws_api:setcookie("sid",SomeRandomSid) , then on subsequent requests from the browser we can call: find_cookie("sid",(Arg#arg.headers)#headers.cookie)

    The function returns [] if no cookie was found, otherwise the actual cookie is returned as a string.

redirect(Url
    This function generates a redirect to the browser. It will clear any previously set headers. So to generate a redirect and set a cookie, we need to set the cookie after the redirect as in:
    out(Arg) ->
      ... do some stuff

      Ret = [{redirect, "http://www.somewhere.com"},
              setcookie("sid", Random)
            ].

redirect_self(Arg)
    If we want to issue a redirect to ourselves, this function is useful. It returns a record #redir_self{} defined in yaws_api.hrl. The record contains fields to construct a URL to ourselves.

    -record(redir_self, {
              host,        %% string() - our own host
              scheme,      %% http | https
              scheme_str,  %% "https://"  | "http://"
              port,        %% integer()  - our own port
              port_str     %% "" | ":<int>" - the optional port part
                           %%                 to append to the url
             }).

get_line(String)
    This function is convenient when getting \r\n terminated lines
    from a stream of data. It returns:

    {line, Line, Tail} or {lastline, Line, Tail}

    The function handles multilines as defined in e.g. SMTP or HTTP

mime_type(FileName)
    Returns the mime type as defined by the extension of FileName

stream_chunk_deliver(YawsPid, Data)
    When a yaws function needs to deliver chunks of data which it gets
    from a process. The other process can call this function to deliver
    these chunks. It requires the out/1 function to return the
    value {streamcontent, MimeType, FirstChunk} to work.
    YawsPid is the process identifier of the yaws process delivering the original
    The Pid must typically be passed (somehow) to the producer of the stream.

stream_chunk_deliver_blocking(YawsPid, Data)
    A synchronous version of the above function. This synchronous version
    must always be used when the producer of the stream is faster than the
    consumer. This is usually the case since the client is the WWW browser.

stream_chunk_end(YawsPid)
    When the process discussed above is done delivering data, it must call
    this function to let the yaws content delivering process finish up
    the HTTP transaction.

stream_process_deliver(Socket, IoList)
    Yaws allows application processes to deliver data directly to the
    client. The application tells yaws about such a process by returning
    {streamcontent_from_pid, MimeType, Pid} from its out/1
    function. In this case, Pid uses the
    stream_process_deliver/2 function to deliver data to the
    client. The application gets Socket from Arg#arg.clisock,
    and IoList is the data to be sent to the client.

stream_process_deliver_chunk(Socket, IoList)
    Same as above but delivers IoList using HTTP chunked transfer
    format. IoList must have a size greater than zero. The
    application process delivering the data will have had to have make
    sure that the HTTP headers of the response indicate chunked transfer
    mode, either by ensuring no Content-Length header is set or by
    specifically setting the Transfer-Encoding header to chunked.

stream_process_deliver_final_chunk(Socket, IoList)
    If the application process delivering data to the client uses chunked
    transfer mode, it must call this to deliver the final chunk of the
    transfer. This tells yaws to create a special final chunk in the
    format required by the HTTP specification (RFC 2616). IoList may
    be empty, but if its size is greater than zero, that data will be
    sent as a separate chunk before the final chunk.

stream_process_end(Socket, YawsPid)
    Application processes delivering data directly to clients must call
    this function to inform yaws that they've finished using
    Socket. The YawsPid argument will have been passed to the
    process earlier when yaws sent it a message telling it to proceed with
    data delivery. Yaws expects Socket to be open.

stream_process_end(closed, YawsPid)
    Same as the previous function but the application calls this if it
    closes the client socket as part of its data delivery process. This
    allows yaws to continue without assuming the socket is still open and
    encountering errors due to that assumption. The YawsPid argument
    will have been passed to the application process earlier when yaws
    sent it a message telling it to proceed with data delivery.

parse_query(Arg)
    This function will parse the query part of the URL.
    It will return a {Key, Value} list of the items supplied in the query
    part of the URL.

queryvar(Arg, VarName)
    This function is automatically included from yaws_api in all
     .yaws pages. It is used to search for a variable in the
    querypart of the url. Returns {ok, Val} or undefined.
    If a variable is defined multiple times, the function may also
    return {Val1, ....}.

parse_post(Arg)
    This function will parse the POST data as supplied from the browser.
    It will return a {Key, Value} list of the items set by the browser.

postvar(Arg, VarName)
    This function is automatically included from yaws_api in all
     .yaws pages. It is used to search for a variable in the
    POSTed data from the client. Returns {ok, Val} or undefined.
    If a variable is defined multiple times, the function may also
    return {Val1, ....}.

getvar(Arg, VarName)
    This function  looks at the HTTP request method from the
    client and invokes postvar/2 if it is a POST from the client
    and queryvar/2 if it is a GET request from the client.

parse_multipart_post(Arg)

    If the browser has set the Content-Type header to the value
    "multipart/form-data", which is the case when the browser
    wants to upload a file to the server the following happens:

    If the function returns {result, Res} no more data
    will come from the browser.

    If the function returns {cont, Cont, Res} the browser
    will supply more data. (The file was to big to come in one read)

    This indicates that there is more data to come and the out/1 function
    should return {get_more, Cont, User_state} where User_state might
    usefully be a File Descriptor.

    The Res value is a list of either:
    {header, Header} | {part_body, Binary} | {body, Binary}

    Example usage could be:

     <erl>

     out(A) ->
            case yaws_api:parse_multipart_post(A) of
                 {cont, Cont, Res} ->
                        St = handle_res(A, Res),
                        {get_more, Cont, St};
                 {result, Res} ->
                        handle_res(A, Res),
                        {html, f("<pre>Done </pre>",[])}
            end.

     handle_res(A, [{head, Name}|T]) ->
          io:format("head:~p~n",[Name]),
          handle_res(A, T);
     handle_res(A, [{part_body, Data}|T]) ->
          io:format("part_body:~p~n",[Data]),
          handle_res(A, T);
     handle_res(A, [{body, Data}|T]) ->
          io:format("body:~p~n",[Data]),
          handle_res(A, T);
     handle_res(A, []) ->
          io:format("End_res~n").

     </erl>

new_cookie_session(Opaque)
    Create a new cookie based session, the yaws system will set the cookie. The new random generated cookie is returned from this function. The Opaque argument will typically contain user data such as user name and password

new_cookie_session(Opaque, TTL)
    As above, but allows to set a session specific time-out value, overriding the system specified time-out value.

new_cookie_session(Opaque, TTL, CleanupPid)
    As above, but also sends a message {yaws_session_end, Reason, Cookie, Opaque} to the provided CleanuPid where Reason can be either of timeout or normal. The Cookie is the HTTP cookie as returned by new_session() and the Opaque is the user provided Opaque parameter to new_session(). The purpose of the feature is to cleanup resources assigned to the session.

cookieval_to_opaque(CookieVal)

print_cookie_sessions()

replace_cookie_session(Cookie, NewOpaque)

delete_cookie_session(Cookie)

setconf(Gconf, Groups)
    This function is intended for embedded mode in yaws. It makes it possible to load a yaws configuration from another data source than /etc/yaws.conf, such as a database. If yaws is started with the environment {embedded, true}, yaws will start with an empty default configuration, and wait for some other program to execute a setconf/2 The Gconf is a #gconf{} record and the Group variable is a list of lists of #sconf{} records. Each sublist must contain #sconf{} records with the same IP/Port listen address. To create a suitable initial #gconf{} record see the code in yaws_config:make_default_gconf/2. Especially the yaws_dir parameter is important to get right.

url_decode(Str)
    Decode url-encoded string. A URL encoded string is a string where all alfa numeric characters and the the character _ are preserved and all other characters are encode as "%XY" where X and Y are the hex values of the least respective most significant 4 bits in the 8 bit character.

url_encode(Str)
    Url-encodes a string. All URLs in HTML documents must be URL encoded.

reformat_header(H)
    Returns a list of reformatted header values from a #header{} record. The return list is suitable for retransmit.

request_url(ARG)
    Return the url as requested by the client. Return value is a #url{} record as defined in yaws_api.hrl

parse_url(Str)
    Parse URL in a string, returns a #url record

format_url(UrlRecord)
    Takes a #url record a formats the Url as a string

call_cgi(Arg, Scriptfilename)
    Calls an executable CGI script, given by its full path. Used to make `.yaws' wrappers for CGI programs. This function usually returns streamcontent.

call_cgi(Arg, Exefilename, Scriptfilename)
    Like before, but calls Exefilename to handle the script. The file name of the script is handed to the executable via a CGI meta variable.

call_fcgi_responder(Arg)
    Calls a FastCGI responder. The address and port of the FastCGI application server are taken from the server configuration (see yaws.conf). Used to make `.yaws' wrappers for FastCGI responders. Returns the same return values as out/1 (see below).

call_fcgi_responder(Arg, Options)
    Same as above, but Options overrides the defaults from the server configuration:

    Options = [Option]
    Option -- one of the following:

    {app_server_host, string() | ip_address()} The hostname or the IP address of the FastCGI application server.

    {app_server_port, 0..65535} The TCP port number of the FastCGI application server.

    {path_info, string()} Override default pathinfo in Arg#arg.pathinfo.

    {extra_env, ExtraEnv} Override default pathinfo in Arg#arg.pathinfo.

    ExtraEnv = [Var]
    Var = {Name, Value}
    Name = string()
    Value = string()

    {trace_protocol, boolean()} Enable or disable tracing of FastCGI protocol messages as info log messages.

    {log_app_error, boolean()} Enable or disable logging of application error messages: output to stderr and non-zero exit value.

call_fcgi_authorizer(Arg) -> {allowed, Out} | {denied, Out}
    Calls a FastCGI authorizer. The address and port of the FastCGI application server are taken from the server configuration (see yaws.conf). Used to make `.yaws' wrappers for FastCGI authorizers. Variables contains the values of the variables returned by the FastCGI application server in the "Variable-XXX: YYY" headers.

    If access is denied, Out contains the complete response returned by the FastCGI application server. This response is typically returned as-is to the HTTP client.

    If access is allowed, Out contains the response returned by the FastCGI application server minus the body (i.e. minus the content) which should be ignored per the FastCGI specification. This response is typically not returned to the HTTP client. The calling application module may wish to inspect the response, for example by extracting variables (see fcgi_extract_variables below) or by inspecting the headers returned by the FastCGI application server.

    Out -- See return values for out/1 below

call_fcgi_authorizer(Arg, Options) -> {allowed, Out} | {denied, Out}
    Same as above, but Options overrides the defaults from the server configuration. See call_fcgi_responder/2 above for a description of Options.

fcgi_extract_variables(Out) -> [{Name, Value}]
    Extracts the environment variables from a FastCGI authorizer response by looking for headers of the form "Variable-Name: Value".

    Name = string() -- The name of the variable (the "Variable-" prefix
    has already been removed).
    Value = string() -- The value of the variable.

dir_listing(Arg)
    Perform a directory listing. Can be used in special directories when we don't want to turn on dir listings for the entire server. Always returns ok.

RETURN VALUES from out/1

The out/1 function can return different values to control the behavior of the server.

{html, DeepList}
    This assumes that DeepList is formatted HTML code. The code will be inserted in the page.

{ehtml, Term}
    This will transform the erlang term Term into a stream of HTML content. The basic syntax of Term is

    EHTML = [EHTML] | {Tag, Attrs, Body} | {Tag, Attrs} | {Tag} |
            binary() | character()
    Tag      = atom()
    Attrs = [{Key, Value}]  or {EventTag, {jscall, FunName, [Args]}}
    Key      = atom()
    Value = string()
    Body  = EHTML

    For example, {p, [], "Howdy"} expands into "<p>Howdy</p> and

    {form, [{action, "a.yaws"}],
       {input, [{type,text}]}}

    expands into

    <form action="a.yaws"
      <input type="text">
    </form>

    It may be more convenient to generate erlang tuples than plain html code.

{content, MimeType, Content}
    This function will make the web server generate different content than HTML. This return value is only allowed in a yaws file which has only one <erl> </erl> part and no html parts at all.

{streamcontent, MimeType, FirstChunk}
    This return value plays the same role as the content return value above.

    However it makes it possible to stream data to the client if the yaws code doesn't have access to all the data in one go. (Typically if a file is very large or if data arrives from back end servers on the network.

{streamcontent_with_timeout, MimeType, FirstChunk, Timeout}
    Similar to above, but with an explicit timeout. The deafult timeout is 30 secs. I.e if the application fails to deliver data to the Yaws process, the streaming will stop. This is often not the desired behaviour in Comet/Ajax applications. It's possible to provide 'infinity' as timeout.

{header, H}
    Accumulates a HTTP header. The trailing CRNL which is supposed to end all HTTP headers must NOT be added. It is added by the server. The following list of headers are given special treatment.

    {connection, What}

    This sets the connection header. If What is the special value "close", the connection will be closed once the yaws page is delivered to the client.

    {location, Url}

    Sets the Location: header. This header is typically combined with the {status, 302} return value.

    {cache_control, What}

    Sets the Cache-Control: header.

    {set_cookie, Cookie}

    Prepends a a Set-Cookie: header to the list of previously set Set-Cookie: headers.

    {content_type, MimeType}

    Sets the Content-Type header.

    {content_length, Len}

    Normally yaws will ship Yaws pages using Transfer-Encoding: chunked. This is because we generally can't know how long a yaws page will be. If we for some reason want to force a Content-Length: header (and we actually do know the length of the content, we can force yaws to not ship the page chunked.

    All other headers must be added using the normal HTTP syntax. Example:

    {header, "My-X-Header: gadong"}

{allheaders, HeaderList}
    Will clear all previously accumulated headers and replace them.

{status, Code}
    Will set another HTTP status code than 200.

break
    Will stop processing of any consecutive chunks of erl or html code in the yaws file.

ok  Do nothing.

{redirect, Url}
    Erase all previous headers and accumulate a single Location header. Set the status code.

{redirect_local, Path}
    Does a redirect to the same Scheme://Host:Port/Path as we currently are executing in.

{get_more, Cont, State}
    When we are receiving large POSTs we can return this value and be invoked again when more Data arrives.

{page, Page}
    Make Yaws return a different page than the one being requested.

{page, {Options, Page}}
    Like the above, but supplying an additional deep list of options. For now, the only type of option is {header, H} with the effect of accumulating the HTTP header H for page Page.

{ssi, File, Delimiter, Bindings}
    Server side include File and macro expansion in File. Each occurrence of a string, say "xyz", inside File which is inside Delimiters is replaced with the corresponding value in Bindings.

    Example: Delimiter = %%

    File contains the string .... %%xyz%% .....

    Bindings contain the tuple {"xyz", "Dingbat"}

    The occurrence of %%xyz%% in File will be replaced with "Dingbat" in the Server side included output.

    The {ssi, File, Delimiter, Bindings} statement can also occur inside a deep ehtml structure.

{bindings, [{Key1, Value2}, {Key2, Value2} .....]}
    Establish variable bindings that can be used in the page.

    All bindings can then be used in the rest of yaws code (in HTML source and within erl tags). In HTML source %%Key%% is expanded to Value and within erl tags yaws_api:binding(Key) can be used to extract Value and yaws_api:binding_exists(Key) can be used to check for the existence of a binding.

{yssi, YawsFile}
    Include a yaws file. Compile it and expand as if it had occured inline.

[ListOfValues]
    It is possible to return a deep list of the above defined return values. Any occurrence of stream_content, get_more or page in this list is legal only if it is the last position of the list.

AUTHOR
Written by Claes Wikstrom

SEE ALSO
yaws.conf(5) erl(1)