HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the W3C standard protocol for
transferring information between a web-client (e.g., a browser) and a
web-server. The protocol is a simple envelope protocol where
standard name/value pairs in the header are used to split the stream
into messages and communicate about the connection-status. Many
languages have client and server libraries to deal with the HTTP
protocol, making this protocol an excellent candidate for building
client-server applications. In particular, HTTP is a natural fit for
networked systems built according to the principles of “Representational
State Transfer” (REST).
In this document we describe a modular infrastructure to access
web-servers from SWI-Prolog and turn Prolog into a web-server.
Acknowledgements
This work has been carried out under the following projects:
GARP,
MIA (dead
link),
IBROW
(dead link),
KITS (dead link)
and
MultiMediaN
(dead link).
The following people have pioneered parts of this library and
contributed with bug reports and suggestions for improvements: Anjo
Anjewierden, Bert Bredeweg, Wouter Jansweijer, Bob Wielinga, Jacco van
Ossenbruggen, Michiel Hildebrandt, Matt Lilley and Keri Harris.
Path wildcards (see http_handler/3)
have been modelled after the “arouter” add-on pack by Raivo
Laanemets. Request rewriting has been added after discussion
with Raivo Laanemets and Anne Ogborn on the SWI-Prolog mailinglist.
