There are a number of ways to implement the open hook
function (which we will discuss in class). One way is to turn
the newly connected service handler into an
active object (using the activate method inherited from
ACE_Task), when then carries out the client request in
the service handler's svc hook, which you must write.
Another way is to use reactive I/O via the ACE_Reactor.
There are hybrid schemes you can use, as well.
Regardless of which approach you use, make sure that your service
handler is intelligent about not getting hung indefinitely on blocking
send and recv calls. I recommend using synchronous
and/or asynchronous timed I/O calls.
The server should not exit unless you explicitly kill it via a
signal (e.g., SIGINT). You should add a signal handler (using either
the ACE_Reactor signal interface or the
ACE_Sig_Action interface) that performs any termination
code necessary to gracefully shutdown the server upon receipt of a
signal. It is hard to come up with a completely portable scheme for
handling signals and shutting down tasks in multi-threaded programs.
For this assignment, you can simply exit the server, which will close
down all the open sockets. We'll cover more portable and robust
mechanisms for closing down the server later in the course.
Some of you have already implemented the server using the
ACE_Reactor and ACE_Acceptor. In this case, please
extend your existing solutions in the following ways:
- Improve existing code -- e.g., implement a more robust
version of the HTTP protocol.
- Incorporate the ACE Connector and ACE Reactor into the
client -- i.e., integrate the ACE_Connector and
ACE_Reactor on the client side and drive the client as a
reactive event loop. This is more like the way that real browsers
work.
- Utilize the ACE Service Configurator -- i.e., utilize
the ACE Service
Configurator framework, which makes it possible to link your HTTP
server implementation into the server dynamically.
Comments
I strongly encourage you to produce reusable C++ components based on
the code you write. We will reuse these components throughout the
course.
References