blitzjb/http-server-in-c

HTTP Webserver in C. Do not try this at home

A HTTP Server in C

This was for my Semester 1 Mini Project for the course Programming in C. I picked this to be my problem statement as i wanted to explore how webservers operate at a low level after being exposed to abstractions like Flask and Express all my life. This was an exceptional learning experience and a project that got be insanely excited about low level programming in general!

Targeted features:

• Listen and respond to incoming HTTP requests
• Parse URL routes and return the appropriate response
• Provide declarative abstractions for defining these URL routes

Outcome:

• All three targeted features were achieved

Limitations:

• As of now, the server can only serve HTML documents. URL routes are mapped directly to HTML documents and aren't generated via View functions. Hence being incompatible with the Model View Controller pattern.
• Responses are limited to text/html mime type. At least supporting application/json for JSON responses is a must for real world application of this server.
• The Server is written in a sequential manner. Ie, it is not written in a reusable fashion. A rewrite in a modular fashion would result in a much better developer experience.