Rook-package

Rook: A web server interface and package for R

This help page defines the Rook specification. It borrows heavily from Ruby's Rack project: https://github.com/rack/rack.

After reading this document, read the Rhttpd help file as it will get you familiar with installing and running Rook

applications. Then explore the example applications located in:

system.file('exampleApps',package='Rook'). class

Rook applications

A Rook application is an R reference class object that implements a 'call' method or an R closure that takes exactly one argument, an environment, and returns a list with three named elements: 'status', 'headers', and 'body'.

Hello World

Here is a basic Rook application as a closure that implements 'hello world':

function(env){
    body = paste('<h1>Hello World! This is Rook',env$rook.version,'.</h1>')
    list(
   status = 200L,
   headers = list(
       'Content-Type' = 'text/html'
   ),
   body = body
    )
}

And the equivalent reference class example:

setRefClass(
  'HelloWorld',
  methods = list(
    call = function(env){
 list(
   status = 200L,
   headers = list(
    'Content-Type' = 'text/html'
   ),
   body = paste('<h1>Hello World! This is Rook',env$rook.version,'.</h1>')
 )
    }
  )
)

The Environment

The environment argument is a true R environment object which the application is free to modify. It is required to contain the following variables:

• REQUEST_METHOD: The HTTP request method, such as "GET" or "POST". This cannot ever be an empty string, and so is always required.
• SCRIPT_NAME: The initial portion of the request URL's "path" that corresponds to the application object, so that the application knows its virtual "location". This may be an empty string, if the application corresponds to the "root" of the server.
• PATH_INFO: The remainder of the request URL's "path", designating the virtual "location" of the request's target within the application. This may be an empty string, if the request URL targets the application root and does not have a trailing slash. This value may be percent-encoded when I originating from a URL.
• QUERY_STRING: The portion of the request URL that follows the ?, if any. May be empty, but is always required!
• SERVER_NAME, SERVER_PORT: When combined with SCRIPT_NAME and PATH_INFO, these variables can be used to complete the URL. Note however that HTTP_HOST, if present, should be used in preference to SERVER_NAME for reconstructing the request URL. SERVER_NAME and SERVER_PORT can never be empty strings, and so are always required.
• HTTP_ Variables: Variables corresponding to the client-supplied HTTP request headers (i.e., variables whose names begin with HTTP_). The presence or absence of these variables should correspond with the presence or absence of the appropriate HTTP header in the request.

In addition, the environment must include the following Rook-specific variables:

• rook.version: This version of Rook.
• rook.url_scheme: 'http' or 'https', depending on the request URL.
• rook.input: See The Input Stream section.
• rook.errors: See The Error Stream section.

The Input Stream

The rook.input variable must contain an object created from a reference class that implements read_lines(), read(), and rewind():

• read_lines(l=-1L):: takes one argument, the number of lines to read. Includes partial ending line.
• read(l=-1L):: takes one argument, the number of bytes to read. Returns a raw vector.
• rewind():: Rewinds the input stream back to the beginning.

The Error Stream

The rook.error variable must contain an object created from a reference class that implements flush() and cat():

• flush():: called with no arguments and makes the error stream immediately appear.
• cat(...,sep=" ",fill=FALSE,labels=NULL):: called with the same arguments as R's "cat" without the file and append argument.

The Response

Rook applications return a list with three named elements: 'status', 'headers', and 'body'.

'status'

An HTTP status value as integer and must be greater than or equal to 100.

'headers'

A named list that contains only character values corresponding to valid HTTP headers.

'body'

Either a character or raw vector. If the character vector is named with value 'file' then value of the vector is interpreted as the location of a file.

Author(s)

Jeffrey Horner jeffrey.horner@gmail.com