Hello developers, I'm attaching below a draft proposal for merging the cpp-netlib and pion-net projects. Its still in the making stage and I would specially like your feedback about the timeline and the deliverables. I've deliberately kept the timeline quite loose to allow for unforseen delays but I really want to get an estimate of how much more can be squeezed into the project without making the it overambitious given the timeframe involved (I'm pretty sure that implementation of rfc1867 would require less than 3 weeks but I would like more feedback on this point). Also, I would like to know if any of the Boost library authors would be interested in mentoring this proposal because without them, this proposal is a sunken ship ;-) Yours sincerely, Divye Kapoor PS: Its not yet in the prescribed format for an application, but there's an almost one to one mapping. ---- Synopsis During the course of the Google Summer of Code, I would like to work on the cpp-netlib [1] and the pion-net [2] projects to ensure that pion-lib HTTP client-server library is seamlessly integrated with the general messaging framework specifed in the cpp-netlib architecture [3]. This will not only address one of the most important use cases of the Boost Asio library as it will provide a general, cross platform implementation of network communication via the the HTTP protocol but it will also lower the entry barrier for creating cross-platform, network aware C++ applications. Project While working on this project, I will have a large codebase to build upon (~ 15000 lines in the pion-net project). To ensure robustness of the code, my first priority will be to create a test suite with Boost.Test and Python (using the BaseHTTPServer module) to ensure standards conforming behaviour of the initial code. After a testing suite is set up and any discovered bugs are removed, I would proceed to refactor the pion-net interface of the library to conform to the interface exposed by the cpp-netlib message classes. This would involve non-trivial changes in the code base as it would require conversion of the pion-HTTP* classes to conform to the transformation layer restrictions of the cpp-netlib classes. This might cause breaking changes to the implementation. All such changes will be documented and appropriate test cases generated. Support for parsing multipart-form data (both encoding and decoding) will then have to be coded in accordance with rfc1867 [4]. Currently, the implementation correctly handles only GET parameters and POST parameters encoded using url-encoding. This creates a limitation of not being able to send and receive files and other such binary chunks of data via a POST request over the network. A correct implementation will enable multiple files potentially as large as 2 GB to be sent and received correctly over the HTTP protocol. Robustness of the code will be a serious challenge in this case as disk file security and large file sizes have to be handled. Ensuring reliable operation in the face of timeouts and incomplete transfer will form an important consideration of this part of the project. This will take up a bulk of the time in the project. The multipart/form-data handling capabilities will then be augmented by support for Compression headers (via gzip compression). This will enable efficient communication on bandwidth constrained networks and will be useful even for simple HTTP requests as this compression will be handled in a transparent manner. Complete support for cacheing will then have to be built in to the HTTP request/response model. In particular, support for the Cache-control directives and Expires directives will have to be built into the client to prevent unnecessary bandwidth usage. Documentation and examples concerning the most common use cases will be created and in case any time is left, a Boost Extension based plugin system will be created to allow easy extension of the HTTP protocol stack to handle custom headers. Timeline Prior to actual coding: April 14-May 26: Finish off examinations at college. Examinations till 13th May. Get familiarized with boost extension, Boost.Test, Boost.Asio, gzip, pion-net and cpp-netlib projects May 26 - July 7: 6 weeks mark July 14: Midterm evaluation 2 weeks - Create a testing suite, ensuring automation and ironing out any unexpected bugs. 2 weeks - Break the old interface and make it conform with the message transform API. 3 weeks - Implement the multipart/form-data encoding and decoding algorithms. Generate test cases. Clean up code July 14-August 11: 1 week - Document all the code changes and the new API to which it conforms. 1 week - Implement the compression header support via optional gzip support 2 weeks - Implement the Cacheing directives. < 1 week - Clean up supporting docs, test cases, etc. I believe that the timeline is flexible enough to handle any unforseen bugs and eventualities that tend to crop up yet is tight enough to keep me busy. Deliverables A feature complete HTTP 1.1 header only implementation conforming to the message <==> rfc data structure mapping of the cpp-netlib project resulting in an integration of the pion-net and cpp-netlib projects released under the Boost Software License. Documentation, Test and Use cases for the most common scenarios will be provided. The library will compile and run successfully on atleast 2 platforms (intended Win32 and linux) and with 2 compilers (gcc 4.2 and MSVC 8) in accordance with Boost portability policies and will follow the Boost naming conventions. Benefits for Boost A network library supporting HTTP(S) and the most common use cases will be ready for review. Learning Experiences in store As a result of this project, I'll gain valuable experience in coding to rfc specifications and gain valuable insight into the working of the HTTP protocol. In addition, I'll get a hands-on experience in working with Boost.Asio and achieve a deeper understanding of the Boost libraries. About Me I'm a 19 year old student from the small town of Jamshedpur, India. I'm pursuing my Integrated Dual Degree course in Computer Science and Engineering (Bachelors) with a Masters specialization in Information Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. I have a strong algorithmic and coding background. I've been ranked 2nd at the International Informatics Olympiad 2005 and 7th All India at the National Cyber Olympiad 2006. I've been coding in C++ for the past 6 years and I have been using the STL for the past 3 years. Over the past year, I've come to use the Boost.Spirit, Boost.Bind and Boost.Lambda libraries and I have gained valuable experience from them. Now, I wish to make my own contribution to Boost by helping to bring network abstraction to the Boost library. [1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/cpp-netlib/ [2] http://www.pion.org/projects/pion-network-library [3] http://cpp-netlib.wiki.sourceforge.net/Architectural+Documentation [4] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1867.txt -- Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference. My official web site: http://www.iitr.ernet.in/studenthomepages/homepages/061305