/ 
ASP4-1.034
River stage one • 4 direct dependents • 4 total dependents
/ ASP4

NAME

ASP4 - Fast, Simple, Scalable Web Development

DESCRIPTION

ASP4 is a web development environment. It takes lessons learned from other web development environments such as Microsoft ASP.Net, Ruby on Rails and Catalyst.

This project has some top-level priorities:

  • Test-Driven

    ASP4 is made for the test-writing fanatic. Anything your web application might do can be tested - using Test::Simple, HTML::Form and ASP4::UserAgent.

    ASP4 supports test-fixtures, properties files (useful for error messages, etc) and uses a simple plain-text JSON configuration file format.

  • Keep It Simple, Smartypants (KISS)

    ASP4 provides a clean slate on which to build web applications. It does not go out of its way to do everything for the developer, and does not enforce any kind of specific coding style.

  • Go Faster

    On a server configuration which can serve a static "HELLO WORLD" page at 12,000 requests per second, ASP4 can serve the "HELLO WORLD" equivalent at 1,200 requests per second. A more complex page that involves deeply-nested MasterPages and server-side includes may come in at 1,000 requests per second.

  • Easy to Learn

    The intrinsic ASP objects - $Request, $Response, $Session, $Server - and ASP4 extensions - $Form, $Config, $Stash - focus developer attention on a simplified environment, while still offering direct access to the "metal" underneath.

    The classic Perl Apache2::RequestRec $r and CGI objects are always accessible via the ASP4::HTTPContext api.

  • Easy to Scale

    Session state can be stored in a database (or distributed via memcached) which means that ASP4 web applications can be served by one machine or many machines.

    Outward Scalability is in the DNA of ASP4.

EXAMPLES

ASP Scripts

ASP scripts are pretty much as you might expect, if you've ever seen an ASP script before:

<html>
  <body>
    <h1>Welcome Back, <%= $Session->{email} || "You" %>!</h1>
<%
  for(1..5) {
%>
  <%= $_ %>: Hello, World!<br/>
<%
  }
%>
  <p>
    Favorite Color: <%= $Server->HTMLEncode( $Form->{favorite_color} ) %>
  </p>
  </body>
</html>

Form Handlers

Like "Controllers" in the MVC paradigm, "Handlers" respond to user input without any of the Perl-embedded-in-HTML distraction.

Some URL-masking happens, so a request to /handlers/hello.world would go to:

package hello::world;

use strict;
use warnings 'all';
use base 'ASP4::FormHandler';
use vars __PACKAGE__->VARS; # Import $Request, $Response, $Session, etc:

sub run {
  my ($self, $context) = @_;
  
  $Response->SetCookie(
    name    => "last-seen",
    value   => scalar(localtime()),
    expires => 30 * 60 * 60 * 24, # 30 days:
  );
  $Response->Write("Hello World!");
}

1;# return true:

MasterPages

Similar to ASP.Net's concept of MasterPages, ASP4's MasterPages allow Page Composition.

Example: (eg: /masters/global.asp)

<%@ MasterPage %>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>
      <asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="meta_title">Default Title</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
    </title>
    <meta name="keywords" content="<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="meta_keywords"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder>" />
    <meta name="description" content="<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="meta_description"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder>" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>
      <asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="page_heading">HELLO</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
    </h1>
    <p>
      <asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="page_body">Content coming soon!</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
    </p>
  </body>
</html>

If you access the page directly, you would see the default content displayed.

Child Pages

Child pages inherit from MasterPages - exactly like child classes inherit from super classes.

Example: (eg: /child.asp)

<%@ Page UseMasterPage="/masters/global.asp" %>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="meta_title">Child Title</asp:Content>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="meta_keywords">child keywords</asp:Content>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="meta_description">child description</asp:Content>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="page_heading">The Child Page</asp:Content>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="page_body">Hello from the Child Page - hooray!</asp:Content>

The result after accessing /child.asp you would see the following:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>
      Child Title
    </title>
    <meta name="keywords" content="child keywords" />
    <meta name="description" content="child description" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>
      The Child Page
    </h1>
    <p>
      Hello from the Child Page - hooray!
    </p>
  </body>
</html>

MasterPage Inheritance

MasterPages can also inherit from other MasterPages.

Example: (eg: /masters/submaster.asp)

<%@ MasterPage %>
<%@ Page UseMasterPage="/masters/global.asp" %>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="meta_title">Submaster Title</asp:Content>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="meta_keywords">submaster keywords</asp:Content>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="meta_description">submaster description</asp:Content>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="page_heading">The Submaster Page</asp:Content>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="page_body">
  The first part.<br/>
  <asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="sub_section">Hello from the subsection!</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
  The final part.
</asp:Content>

A page inheriting from /masters/submaster.asp could get by with only:

<%@ Page UseMasterPage="/masters/submaster.asp" %>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="sub_section">
  <b>Hello from the subsection!</b><br/>
</asp:Content>

The resulting content would be:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>
      Submaster Title
    </title>
    <meta name="keywords" content="submaster keywords" />
    <meta name="description" content="submaster description" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>
      The Submaster Page
    </h1>
    <p>
  The first part.<br/>
  <b>Hello from the subsection!</b><br/>
  The final part.
    </p>
  </body>
</html>

**THEN** you could further subclass like this:

<%@ Page UseMasterPage="/masters/submaster.asp" %>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="meta_title">My Title!</asp:Content>

<asp:Content PlaceHolderID="sub_section">My Content Too!</asp:Content>

The output would be:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>
      My Title!
    </title>
    <meta name="keywords" content="submaster keywords" />
    <meta name="description" content="submaster description" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>
      The Submaster Page
    </h1>
    <p>
      
  The first part.<br/>
  My Content Too!
  The final part.

    </p>
  </body>
</html>

BUGS

It's possible that some bugs have found their way into this release.

Use RT http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=ASP4 to submit bug reports.

HOMEPAGE

Please visit the ASP4 homepage at http://0x31337.org/code/ to see examples of ASP4 in action.

AUTHOR

John Drago <jdrago_999@yahoo.com>

COPYRIGHT

This software is Free software and may be used and redistributed under the same terms as perl itself.