New fun project: a C++ Web Framework

As a true programmer, I need fun projects to stay alive. Don’t get me wrong, my client work fulfills me, and eventhough I’ve been slacking lately in keeping up with its workload, CakePHP is also a lot of fun. However, true programmers are always looking for a fun project, one they can call their own. Meet CLAPP, a C++ MVC Web Framework.

I am not even close to finishing it, but so far I’m having LOTS of fun. What is amazing is that missing only the M in MVC (the database abstraction layer), CLAPP’s performance is already astonishing. Running as FastCGI, it outperforms the most basic PHP file by a ratio of 1000%. Amazing.

So what am I looking to gain from this? Nothing, just having fun going back to my absolute favourite language: C++. In the meantime, I get to play with speed comparisons, which gets particularly interesting as I enable more stuff in the framework. My ideal goal is to include a lot of the you-just-have-to-have-this kind of things available on real, serious frameworks such as CakePHP. This doesn’t mean that I will hereon start developing every web application in C++, that would just be dumb (if you are asking why, then that’s because you haven’t given CakePHP a try). It does mean, however, that I’ll be posting about CLAPP every now and then.

To calm your expectations, here’s a very, VERY small preview of the Dispatcher, which is directly attached to every controller:

#ifndef __CLAPP_DISPATCHER_HPP
#define __CLAPP_DISPATCHER_HPP

#include <clapp/cgi_stream.h>
#include <clapp/controller.h>

namespace clapp {
	template <class C>
	class Dispatcher {
		public:
			Dispatcher();
			~Dispatcher();
			void dispatch();

		private:
#ifdef CLAPP_WITH_FASTCGI
			CgiStreamFastCgi * cgiStream;
#else
			CgiStream * cgiStream;
#endif

			void execute();
	};
}

template <class C>
clapp::Dispatcher<C>::Dispatcher() {
#ifdef CLAPP_WITH_FASTCGI
	this->cgiStream = new CgiStreamFastCgi();
#else
	this->cgiStream = new CgiStream();
#endif
}

template <class C>
clapp::Dispatcher<C>::~Dispatcher() {
	delete this->cgiStream;
}

template <class C>
void clapp::Dispatcher<C>::dispatch() {
#ifdef CLAPP_WITH_FASTCGI
	FCGX_Request request;

	FCGX_Init();
	FCGX_InitRequest(&request, 0, 0);

	while (FCGX_Accept_r(&request) == 0) {
		this->cgiStream->setRequest(request);
		this->execute();
		FCGX_Finish_r(&request);
	}
#else
	this->execute();
#endif
}

template <class C>
void clapp::Dispatcher<C>::execute() {
	C *controller = NULL;

	try {
		controller = new C();

		controller->setStream(this->cgiStream);
		controller->dispatch();

		delete controller;
	} catch(...) {
		if (controller != NULL) {
			delete controller;
		}
		throw;
	}
}

#endif

As you can guess from the source code, CLAPP can produce FastCGIs and regular CGIs. It uses ClearSilver for its view / layout templates, the FastCGI development kit (when FastCGI mode is enabled), and GNU cgicc as a CGI / FastCGI input wrapper. More news coming soon!