libfast - FastCGI Application Server w/ Templates¶

libfast is a small library built around libfcgi and ClearSilver. It wraps these libraries properly and integrates session management and a MVC-like architecture. It targets embedded systems or servers where processing power and footprint is limited and should work with any FastCGI capable webserver.

Architecture¶

A web application based on libfast has a global and a session context:

• Global context
  • inter-session data
  • database connections (source:src/libstrongswan/database/database.h)
  • ...
• Session context (source:src/libfast/context.h)
  • per-session data
  • controllers (source:src/libfast/controller.h)
  • filters (source:src/libfast/filter.h)

libfast automatically creates and manages a session for each connecting user and allocates a private session context. In that context, a defined set of controllers and filters are allocated. These instances are per session, so you might save session-specific data in them.

The session context is synchronized, only one thread enters a session. The global context is accessed by all sessions, so you'll need to write global objects thread-save.

Building a web application¶

Here a small example how to set up a web application:

dispatcher_t *dispatcher;
your_global_context_implementation_t *global;

global = initialize_your_global_context();

dispatcher = dispatcher_create(NULL, FALSE, 180,
   (context_constructor_t)your_session_context_create, global);
dispatcher->add_controller(dispatcher, your_controller1_create, param1);
dispatcher->add_controller(dispatcher, your_controller2_create, param2);

dispatcher->run(dispatcher, 20);
dispatcher->waitsignal(dispatcher);

dispatcher->destroy(dispatcher);
global->destroy();

Have a look at the manager (source:src/manager) for a more complete example.