Overview: HTTP Server

HTTP Server

A slightly more interesting example is an HTTP Server:

require "http/server"

server = HTTP::Server.new(8080) do |context|
  context.response.content_type = "text/plain"
  context.response.print "Hello world! The time is #{Time.now}"
end

puts "Listening on http://127.0.0.1:8080"
server.listen

The above code will make sense once you read the whole documentation, but we can already learn some things.

• You can require code defined in other files:

    require "http/server"
  

• You can define local variables without the need to specify their type:

    server = HTTP::Server.new ...
  

• You program by invoking methods (or sending messages) to objects.

    HTTP::Server.new(8080) ...
    ...
    Time.now
    ...
    puts "Listening on http://127.0.0.1:8080"
    ...
    server.listen
  

• You can use code blocks, or simply blocks, which are a very convenient way to reuse code and get some features from the functional world:

    HTTP::Server.new(8080) do |context|
      ...
    end
  

• You can easily create strings with embedded content, known as string interpolation. The language comes with other syntax as well to create arrays, hashes, ranges, tuples and more:

    "Hello world! The time is #{Time.now}"