arteymix / micro-http

µHTTP is an overly simplified interface for HTTP

micro-http

µHTTP is an overly simplified interface for HTTP

µHTTP is designed for human with the idea that a good standard for expressing HTTP request is essential when you do not have access to high-level tools like a full-featured web browser. The goals this standard has to focus on are:

• to use a minimum of characters
• to be easy to remember for a human
• to provide an extensible syntax
• to abstract the complexity of underlied protocol
• to be independant of the protocol version

The grammar is still under deep reflexion.

Grammar

µHTTP is defined using extended BNF grammer.

key      = ;
value    = ;
dict     = key, ':', value, { ',', dict };
method   = 'g' | 'p' | 'p' | 'd';
ip       = ; (* see ip specification for ipv4 and ipv6 *)
domain   = { domain, '.' }, [a-Z0-9]; (* domain and subdomain *)
host     = ip | domain, ':', port;
uri      = ; (* see uri specifications *)
headers  = '%', dict;
query    = '?', dict;
body     = '&', value;
status   = 'ok' | 'not found' | '';
request  = method, host, '/', uri, [ headers ], [ query ], [ body ];
response = status, ': ', body;

Examples

Get latest reddit frontpage posts

g www.reddit.com

Search through reddit (66 characters)

g www.reddit.com/search ? q: search terms, sort: relevance, t: all 

Same request, compressed (59 characters)

g www.reddit.com/search?q:search terms,sort:relevance,t:all

Same request, using HTTP/1.1 (73 characters including the CRLF end of line)

GET www.reddit.com/search?q=search%2terms&sort=relevance&t=all HTTP/1.1