TinyServer

TinyServer is a lightweight HTTP server written in Java.
Your feedback is always welcome.

Features:

• Multithreaded
• GET paramters
• POST requests
• RESTful routes
• Callback methods
• Fileserver capability
• File, JSON, HTML response classes (easy to write your own)
• High performance

TinyServer is perfect for embedding it into your applications.

Requirements

• Java 7+
• Response class dependencies [optional]

Quick Start

First import the server library: import net.metzweb.tinyserver.*;
Now you are good to go and can setup the server:

// init server at port 8200
TinyServer server = new TinyServer(8200);

// define a GET route
server.get("/", new Response() {
  @Override
  public void callback(Request request) {
    request.write("Hello world :)");
  }
});

// start server
server.start();

and make your first request: http://localhost:8200
If everything works well, you will get a friendly welcome response:

Hello world :)

For a working example, take a look into the /example folder.

Details

Server

Initialize the server by calling: new TinyServer(<port>)

After you have defined all routes, simply call start() to start the server and receive requests.

Request routes

GET

Route get(<route>, <callback>)

POST

Route post(<route>, <callback>)

Route patterns

Before you define your request routes, please take a look at the following guidlines:

1. all routes have to start with a backslash: /hello/world
   • the default route is simply: /
2. request parameters are not allowed in your route path: /hello?foo=bar
   • access the params instead in the callback method.
3. "fake" file extensions allowed: /hello.json
   • useful, if you associate it with the according response format.

Request parameters

GET parameter

If your request contains request parameters, they will be accessible in your callback method.

To receive a particular parameter, pass its key into the param(<key>) method. If the key doesn't exists it will return null.

Example usage: /hello?name=Christian

public void callback(Request request) {
  request.write("Howdy " + request.param("name"));
}

Route parameter (RESTful)

In order to receive route parameters, mark these with placeholders: [parameter]

get("/hello/[name]/[age]", <callback>)

These values are accessible in your callback method, the same way as one accesses GET params:
request.param(<parameter>)

Wildcards are also supported by an asterisk: *

get("/hello/*/[name]", <callback>)

request.params() returns all wildcard parameters as an ordered list.

POST data

Retrieve posted data, by using the getData() method in your callback method.
This returns the POST data as a String (including linebreaks).

Callback

Anonymous class

An anonymous class can be directly passed into the route method:

server.get("/", new Response() {
  @Override
  public void callback(Request request) {
    // ...
  }
});

Standalone class

A callback class has to implement the Response interface:

class MyCallback implements Response {
  @Override
  public void callback(Request request) {
    // ...
  }
}

and then be passed into the route method:

server.get("/", new MyCallback());

Response

By default, TinyServer sends text/plain responses.
In order to use a formatted response, it's necessary to set the response class accordingly:

server.setResponseFormat(<format object>);

In order to define the response format for each route, one appends the format Setter to the route method (since the route methods return a Route object):

server.get("/", new Response() {
  @Override
  public void callback(Request request) {
    // ...
  }
}).setResponseFormat(<format object>);

Every response class comes with four methods (message is optional):

• 200 Success: success(<data>)
• 403 Forbidden: forbidden(<message>)
• 404 Not found: notFound(<message>)
• 500 Server Error: error(<message>)

These methods are accessible by calling the write() method in your callback method:

request.write().success("Hello world.");

Shortcut: Alternatively, you can pass your data directly into the write() method, which is an alias for the success() method:

request.write("Hello world.");

File

To serve a file, simply pass its path into the success(String filePath) method.

Example usage:

server.setResponseFormat(new FileResponse());
server.get("/kitten", new Response() {
  @Override
  public void callback(Request request) {
    request.write("kitten.jpg");
  }
});

Server response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Type: image/jpeg
Server: TinyServer

<kitten.jpg>

HTML

The success(String htmlContent) method accepts an HTML String.

Example usage:

server.setResponseFormat(new HtmlResponse());
server.get("/halloween", new Response() {
  @Override
  public void callback(Request request) {
    String output = "<!DOCTYPE html>"
	  + "<html>"
	  + "  <head><title>31 October</title></head>"
	  + "  <body><h2>Happy Halloween!</h2></body>"
	  + "</html>";
	request.write(output);
  }
});

Server response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Server: TinyServer

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head><title>31 October</title></head>"
  <body><h2>Happy Halloween!</h2></body>"
</html>

JSON

---

Please note: This requires the JSON simple Java library.

---

The success() method requires a Map object, that holds the key => value pairs,
or alternatively a List object.

Example usage:

server.setResponseFormat(new JsonResponse());
server.get("/weather", new Response() {
  @Override
  public void callback(Request request) {
    HashMap<String, String> map = new HashMap<>();
    map.put("location", "Munich");
    map.put("condition", "fair");
    map.put("temperature", "32 °C");
    request.write(map);
  }
});

Response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Server: TinyServer

{
  "status": "200",
  "message": "OK",
  "data": {
    "condition": "fair",
    "location": "Munich",
    "temprature": "32 °C"
  }
}

Other formats

It's simple to create your own response class for a missing format.
You can find a response class template in the example folder.

---

Every response class must extend the abstract ResponseFormat class
and its constructor must call super(<MIME type>).

---

Response classes

• FileResponse
• HtmlResponse
• JsonResponse
  • requires JSON simple
• PlainResponse (default)

Let me know if you have created a new response class, so it can be add it to the list.

Misc

POST routes can be tested with cURL via the terminal:

curl -X POST -d 'hello world' localhost:8200/data --header "Content-Type:text/plain"
curl -X POST -d @hello.txt localhost:8200/file --header "Content-Type:text/plain"

Config

• Server port: new TinyServer(<port>)

Issues

Please submit issues through the issue tracker on GitHub.

History

TinyServer 1.3 - 28/10/2013

• feature Added support for wildcard route parameters
• update Updated documentation accordingly

TinyServer 1.2 - 24/07/2013

• feature Added optional message parameter to all response methods

TinyServer 1.1 - 18/07/2013

• update Improved documentation
• feature Routes can have their own response formats

TinyServer 1.0 - 13/07/2013

• release First official version
• update Major code improvements
• update DRY code guidelines
• update Rewritten documentation
• feature RESTful route parameters
• feature anonymous callbacks
• feature JSON response class
• feature Java 7 improvements
• feature POST request support
• feature File response class

Server 0.8 - 28/10/2012

• release Internal testing version
• feature Multithreading
• update Better documentation

Server 0.5 - 24/10/2012

• release First internal alpha version

Credits

Copyright (c) 2013 - Programmed by Christian Metz
Released under the BSD License.