httpbeast Documentation

Performance and Parallelization

• Automatic Parallelization: Enabled by compiling with the --threads:on flag.
• Efficient I/O: Built on Nim's selectors module, utilizing epoll on Linux and kqueue on macOS.
• On-demand Parsing: Only requested data is parsed to optimize performance.
• HTTP Pipelining: Supported.

Integration and Compatibility

• Async Support: Integrates with Nim's asyncdispatch, allowing the use of async/await within request callbacks.
• OS Support: Does not support Windows by design (uses epoll-like APIs).

Security Warning

This library is not hardened against common HTTP security exploits. For production use, it is recommended to run httpbeast behind a reverse proxy like nginx.

To use httpbeast, create a Nimble package and a source file. Ensure you have httpbeast listed as a dependency in your .nimble file and that you compile with --threads:on to enable automatic parallelization.

1. Configure your .nimble file

Include httpbeast >= 0.4.0 in your dependencies.

2. Implement your request handler

Import httpbeast and use the run(onRequest) function. The handler receives a Request object and returns a Future[void]. You can use req.httpMethod, req.path, and req.send() to manage responses.

3. Run the application

Use nimble c -r <your_file>.nim to compile and run.

import options, asyncdispatch
import httpbeast

proc onRequest(req: Request): Future[void] =
  if req.httpMethod == some(HttpGet):
    case req.path.get()
    of "/":
      req.send("Hello World")
    else:
      req.send(Http404)

run(onRequest)