184 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
184 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
HTTP Parser
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===========
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[](https://travis-ci.org/joyent/http-parser)
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This is a parser for HTTP messages written in C. It parses both requests and
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responses. The parser is designed to be used in performance HTTP
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applications. It does not make any syscalls nor allocations, it does not
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buffer data, it can be interrupted at anytime. Depending on your
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architecture, it only requires about 40 bytes of data per message
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stream (in a web server that is per connection).
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Features:
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* No dependencies
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* Handles persistent streams (keep-alive).
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* Decodes chunked encoding.
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* Upgrade support
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* Defends against buffer overflow attacks.
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The parser extracts the following information from HTTP messages:
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* Header fields and values
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* Content-Length
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* Request method
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* Response status code
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* Transfer-Encoding
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* HTTP version
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* Request URL
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* Message body
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Usage
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-----
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One `http_parser` object is used per TCP connection. Initialize the struct
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using `http_parser_init()` and set the callbacks. That might look something
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like this for a request parser:
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```c
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http_parser_settings settings;
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settings.on_url = my_url_callback;
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settings.on_header_field = my_header_field_callback;
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/* ... */
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http_parser *parser = malloc(sizeof(http_parser));
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http_parser_init(parser, HTTP_REQUEST);
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parser->data = my_socket;
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```
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When data is received on the socket execute the parser and check for errors.
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```c
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size_t len = 80*1024, nparsed;
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char buf[len];
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ssize_t recved;
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recved = recv(fd, buf, len, 0);
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if (recved < 0) {
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/* Handle error. */
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}
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/* Start up / continue the parser.
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* Note we pass recved==0 to signal that EOF has been received.
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*/
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nparsed = http_parser_execute(parser, &settings, buf, recved);
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if (parser->upgrade) {
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/* handle new protocol */
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} else if (nparsed != recved) {
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/* Handle error. Usually just close the connection. */
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}
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```
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HTTP needs to know where the end of the stream is. For example, sometimes
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servers send responses without Content-Length and expect the client to
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consume input (for the body) until EOF. To tell http_parser about EOF, give
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`0` as the fourth parameter to `http_parser_execute()`. Callbacks and errors
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can still be encountered during an EOF, so one must still be prepared
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to receive them.
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Scalar valued message information such as `status_code`, `method`, and the
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HTTP version are stored in the parser structure. This data is only
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temporally stored in `http_parser` and gets reset on each new message. If
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this information is needed later, copy it out of the structure during the
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`headers_complete` callback.
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The parser decodes the transfer-encoding for both requests and responses
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transparently. That is, a chunked encoding is decoded before being sent to
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the on_body callback.
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The Special Problem of Upgrade
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------------------------------
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HTTP supports upgrading the connection to a different protocol. An
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increasingly common example of this is the Web Socket protocol which sends
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a request like
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GET /demo HTTP/1.1
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Upgrade: WebSocket
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Connection: Upgrade
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Host: example.com
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Origin: http://example.com
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WebSocket-Protocol: sample
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followed by non-HTTP data.
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(See http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hixie-thewebsocketprotocol-75 for more
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information the Web Socket protocol.)
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To support this, the parser will treat this as a normal HTTP message without a
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body, issuing both on_headers_complete and on_message_complete callbacks. However
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http_parser_execute() will stop parsing at the end of the headers and return.
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The user is expected to check if `parser->upgrade` has been set to 1 after
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`http_parser_execute()` returns. Non-HTTP data begins at the buffer supplied
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offset by the return value of `http_parser_execute()`.
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Callbacks
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---------
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During the `http_parser_execute()` call, the callbacks set in
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`http_parser_settings` will be executed. The parser maintains state and
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never looks behind, so buffering the data is not necessary. If you need to
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save certain data for later usage, you can do that from the callbacks.
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There are two types of callbacks:
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* notification `typedef int (*http_cb) (http_parser*);`
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Callbacks: on_message_begin, on_headers_complete, on_message_complete.
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* data `typedef int (*http_data_cb) (http_parser*, const char *at, size_t length);`
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Callbacks: (requests only) on_url,
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(common) on_header_field, on_header_value, on_body;
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Callbacks must return 0 on success. Returning a non-zero value indicates
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error to the parser, making it exit immediately.
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In case you parse HTTP message in chunks (i.e. `read()` request line
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from socket, parse, read half headers, parse, etc) your data callbacks
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may be called more than once. Http-parser guarantees that data pointer is only
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valid for the lifetime of callback. You can also `read()` into a heap allocated
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buffer to avoid copying memory around if this fits your application.
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Reading headers may be a tricky task if you read/parse headers partially.
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Basically, you need to remember whether last header callback was field or value
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and apply the following logic:
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(on_header_field and on_header_value shortened to on_h_*)
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------------------------ ------------ --------------------------------------------
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| State (prev. callback) | Callback | Description/action |
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------------------------ ------------ --------------------------------------------
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| nothing (first call) | on_h_field | Allocate new buffer and copy callback data |
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| | | into it |
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------------------------ ------------ --------------------------------------------
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| value | on_h_field | New header started. |
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| | | Copy current name,value buffers to headers |
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| | | list and allocate new buffer for new name |
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------------------------ ------------ --------------------------------------------
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| field | on_h_field | Previous name continues. Reallocate name |
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| | | buffer and append callback data to it |
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------------------------ ------------ --------------------------------------------
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| field | on_h_value | Value for current header started. Allocate |
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| | | new buffer and copy callback data to it |
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------------------------ ------------ --------------------------------------------
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| value | on_h_value | Value continues. Reallocate value buffer |
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| | | and append callback data to it |
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------------------------ ------------ --------------------------------------------
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Parsing URLs
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------------
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A simplistic zero-copy URL parser is provided as `http_parser_parse_url()`.
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Users of this library may wish to use it to parse URLs constructed from
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consecutive `on_url` callbacks.
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See examples of reading in headers:
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* [partial example](http://gist.github.com/155877) in C
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* [from http-parser tests](http://github.com/joyent/http-parser/blob/37a0ff8/test.c#L403) in C
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* [from Node library](http://github.com/joyent/node/blob/842eaf4/src/http.js#L284) in Javascript
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