NAME Web::Reactor perl-based web application machinery. SYNOPSIS Startup CGI script example: #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use lib '/opt/perl/reactor/lib'; # if Reactor is custom location installed use Web::Reactor; my %cfg = ( 'APP_NAME' => 'demo', 'APP_ROOT' => '/opt/reactor/demo/', 'LIB_DIRS' => [ '/opt/reactor/demo/lib/' ], 'HTML_DIRS' => [ '/opt/reactor/demo/html/' ], 'SESS_VAR_DIR' => '/opt/reactor/demo/var/sess/', 'DEBUG' => 4, ); eval { new Web::Reactor( %cfg )->run(); }; if( $@ ) { print STDERR "REACTOR CGI EXCEPTION: $@"; print "content-type: text/html\n\nsystem is temporary unavailable"; } HTML page file example: <#html_header> <$app_name> <#menu> testing page html file action test: <&test> <#html_footer> Action module example: package Reactor::Actions::demo::test; use strict; use Data::Dumper; use Web::Reactor::HTML::FormEngine; sub main { my $reo = shift; # Web::Reactor object. Provides all API and context. my $text; # result html text if( $reo->get_input_button() eq 'FORM_CANCEL' ) { # if clicked form button is cancel, # return back to the calling/previous page/view with optional data return $reo->forward_back( ACTION_RETURN => 'IS_CANCEL' ); } # add some html content $text .= "

Reactor::Actions::demo::test here!

"; # create link and hide its data. only accessible from inside web app. my $grid_href = $reo->args_new( _PN => 'grid', TABLE => 'testtable', ); $text .= "go to grid

"; # access page session. it will be auto-loaded on demand my $page_session_hr = $reo->get_page_session(); my $fortune = $page_session_hr->{ 'FORTUNE' } ||= `/usr/games/fortune`; # access input (form) data. $i and $e are hashrefs my $i = $reo->get_user_input(); # get plain user input (hashref) my $e = $reo->get_safe_input(); # get safe data (never reach user browser) $text .= "


$fortune


"; my $bc = $reo->args_here(); # session keeper, this is manual use $text .= "
"; $text .= ""; $text .= "input "; $text .= ""; $text .= ""; $text .= "
"; my $form = $reo->new_form(); $text .= "


"; return $text; } 1; DESCRIPTION Web::Reactor (WR) provides automation of most of the usual and frequent tasks when constructing a web application. Such tasks include: * User session handling (creation, cookies support, storage) * Page (web screen/view) session handling (similar to user sessions attributes) * Sessions (user/page/etc.) data storage and auto load/ssave * Inter-page relations and data transport (hides real data from the end-user) * HTML page creation and expansion (i.e. including preprocessing :)) * Optional HTML forms creation and data handling Web::Reactor is designed to allow extending or replacing some parts as: * Session storage (data store on filesystem, database, remote or vmem) * HTML creation/expansion/preprocessing * Page actions/modules execution (can be skipped if custom HTML prep used) HTTP PARAMETERS NAMES WR uses underscore and one or two letters for its system http/html parameters. Some of the system params are: _PN -- html page name (points to file template, restricted to alphanumeric) _P -- page session _R -- referer (caller) page session More details about how those params are used can be found below. USER SESSIONS WR creates unique session for each connected user. The session is kept by a cookie. Usually WR needs justthis cookie to handle all user/server interaction. Inside WR action code, user session is represented as a hash reference. It may hold arbitrary data. "System" or WR-specific data inside user session has colon as prefix: # $reo is Web::Reactor object (i.e. context) passed to the action/module code my $user_session = $reo->get_user_session(); print STDERR $user_session->{ ':CTIME_STR' }; # prints in http log the create time in human friendly form All data saved inside user session is automatically saved. When needed it can be explicitly with: $reo->save(); # saves all modified context to disk or other storage PAGE SESSIONS Each page presented to the user has own session. It is very similar to the user session (it is hash reference, may hold any data, can be saved with $reo->save()). It is expected that page sessions hold all context data needed for any page to display properly. To preserve page session it is needed that it is included in any link to this page instance or in any html form used. When called for the first time, each page request needs page name (_PN). Afterwards a unique page session is created and page name is saved inside. At this moment this page instance can be accessed (i.e. given control to) only with a page session id (_P): $page_sid = ...; # taken from somewhere # to pass control to the page instance: $reo->forward( _P => $page_sid ); # the page instance will pull data from its page session and display in # its last known state Not always page session are needed. For example, when forward to the caller is needed, you just need to: $reo->forward_back(); # this is equivalent to my $ref_page_sid = $reo->get_ref_page_session_id(); $reo->forward( _P => $ref_page_sid ); Each page instance knows the caller page session and can give control back to. However it may pass more data when returning back to the caller: $reo->forward_back( MORE_DATA => 'is here', OPTIONS_LIST => \@list ); When new page instance has to be called (created): $reo->forward_new( _PN => 'some_page_name' ); PROJECT STATUS At the moment Web::Reactor is in beta. API is mostly frozen but it is fairly possible to be changed and/or extended. However drastic changes are not planned :) If you are interested in the project or have some notes etc, contact me at: Vladi Belperchinov-Shabanski "Cade" further contact info, mailing list and github repository is listed below. FIXME: TODO: * config examples * pages example * actions example * API description (input data, safe data, sessions, forwarding, actions, html) * ... DEMO APPLICATION Documentation will be improved shortly, but meanwhile you can check 'demo' directory inside distribution tarball or inside the github repository. This is fully functional (however stupid :)) application. It shows how data is processed, calling pages/views, inspecting page (calling views) stack, html forms automation, forwarding. MAILING LIST web-reactor@googlegroups.com GITHUB REPOSITORY https://github.com/cade4/perl-web-reactor git clone git://github.com/cade4/perl-web-reactor.git AUTHOR Vladi Belperchinov-Shabanski "Cade" http://cade.datamax.bg