Hello, So this is rather embarrassing. After working more than 2 days full time I can't even get the most basic code running. I've scoured the docs and tried to find some tutorial, no luck. My onboarding experience so far has been… less than perfect.
The reason I'm taking the time to ask here is because I feel there is something fundamental, likely obvious to the experts, that I don't understand about how beast (and, I'm guessing, asio) works, and how I'm supposed to use it. Which is probably why seemingly innocuous changes to official example code are causing memory corruptions left and right. Let's start at the beginning. My first attempt with beast was getting this code to work: https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_73_0/libs/beast/example/http/server/small/http_server_small.cpp Compiling it with `g++ -std=c++20`, gets me a compilation error, thankfully easily fixed. Then I wait almost 4 seconds for a successful compilation. `-O2` and `-Og -g` are worse at 6 seconds. I know many developers would say a few seconds are no big deal (though wen we get to XKCD sword fights it kind of is), but my problem here is that I didn't want to wait every time I made a business logic change to my code. But since 95% of compilation time came from including a huge header-only library, I figured I'd write a wrapper, that would confine boost/asio/beast includes to a single compilation unit. The API I'm aiming for looks like this: struct Http_message { std::unordered_map<std::string, std::string> headers; std::string body; }; struct Http_request : public Http_message { std::string method; std::string target; }; struct Http_response : public Http_message { int status; }; typedef std::function<Http_response(const Http_request &request)> response_cb; void http_start(unsigned short port, response_cb on_respond); (Note 1: I want web sockets as well, but one problem at a time) (Note 2: I tried wrapping around http::request and http::response more directly to avoid unnecessary copies, but I ran into lifetime issues.) To its credit, this small server example seemed to run well enough, and could serve as a starting point. Before I untangle the business code from the HTTP specific stuff though, I needed to simplify this example a bit. So *this* is my actual starting point: #include <boost/beast/core.hpp> #include <boost/beast/http.hpp> namespace beast = boost::beast; namespace http = beast::http; namespace net = boost::asio; using tcp = boost::asio::ip::tcp; class http_connection : public std::enable_shared_from_this<http_connection> { public: http_connection(tcp::socket socket) : socket_(std::move(socket)){} void start() { auto self = shared_from_this(); http::async_read( socket_, buffer_, request_, [self](beast::error_code ec, std::size_t) { if(!ec) { self->process_request(); } }); deadline_.async_wait( [self](beast::error_code ec) { if(!ec) { self->socket_.close(ec); } }); } private: tcp::socket socket_; beast::flat_buffer buffer_{8192}; http::request <http::dynamic_body> request_; http::response<http::dynamic_body> response_; net::steady_timer deadline_ { socket_.get_executor(), std::chrono::seconds(60) }; void process_request() { response_.version(request_.version()); response_.keep_alive(false); response_.result(http::status::ok); response_.set(http::field::server, "Beast"); response_.set(http::field::content_type, "text/plain"); beast::ostream(response_.body()) << "Target = " << request_.target() << "\n" << "Method = " << std::string(request_.method_string()) << "\n"; response_.set(http::field::content_length, std::to_string(response_.body().size())); auto self = shared_from_this(); http::async_write( socket_, response_, [self](beast::error_code ec, std::size_t) { self->socket_.shutdown(tcp::socket::shutdown_send, ec); self->deadline_.cancel(); }); } }; void http_server(tcp::acceptor& acceptor, tcp::socket& socket) { auto cb = [&](beast::error_code ec) { if(!ec) {std::make_shared<http_connection>(std::move(socket))->start();} http_server(acceptor, socket); }; acceptor.async_accept(socket, cb); } int main(void) { auto const address = net::ip::make_address("0.0.0.0"); unsigned short port = 8080; net::io_context ioc {1}; tcp::acceptor acceptor{ioc, {address, port}}; tcp::socket socket {ioc}; http_server(acceptor, socket); ioc.run(); return 0; } So far it works. It listens to port 8080, and a curl request or 3 to the server works as expected: $ curl -XYOLO -v http://localhost:8080/foobar * Trying 127.0.0.1:8080... * Connected to localhost (127.0.0.1) port 8080 (#0) > YOLO /foobar HTTP/1.1 > Host: localhost:8080 > User-Agent: curl/7.81.0 > Accept: */* > * Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < Connection: close < Server: Beast < Content-Type: text/plain < Content-Length: 31 < Target = /foobar Method = YOLO * Closing connection 0 And yet I can sense a potential problem right off the bat: in the `http_server()` function, we call `std::move(socket)`. This move seems to be mandatory here, because removing triggers a compilation error. My point is, it looks like upon incoming connection we move the socket out of its outer context, such that it is no longer bound to the IO context. Is this another error in the example? Okay then, how about I pass the socket all the way by reference instead? Let the constructor get a `tcp::socket&`, store this in a `tcp::socket&` member variable, remove all the `std::move`. It compiles, it runs the first query, but at the second query my program just freezes. Or loops, I don't know. So that's the first thing. I am _really confused_ about how this socket is supposed to work. Why does it block when I remove the standard moves? Isn't it supposed to be the same socket bound to the same IO context all the way? And I don't think it falls out of scope before the program ends either, it lives on the stack of the `main()` function, and the `ioc.run()`we call at the end blocks until we're done with the async reads (which is, never). **Can someone explain to me what the hell is going on with this socket?** Right now though I can accept that some dark secret lies behind this `std::move()`, and leave it alone for now. Moving on, I'll just admit for the time being that something magical and forbidden lies between this mysterious `std::move()` and prudently leave it behind. Now it's working again, and I can move (no pun intended) to the next step: extracting the business logic to an external function. I start with a trivial extraction: void respond(http::response<http::dynamic_body> &response, const http::request <http::dynamic_body> &request) { response.result(http::status::ok); response.set(http::field::content_type, "text/plain"); beast::ostream(response.body()) << "Target = " << request.target() << "\n" << "Method = " << std::string(request.method_string()) << "\n"; } And modify `process_request()` accordingly: void process_request() { response_.version(request_.version()); response_.keep_alive(false); response_.set(http::field::server, "Beast"); respond(response_, request_); response_.set(http::field::content_length, std::to_string(response_.body().size())); auto self = shared_from_this(); http::async_write( socket_, response_, [self](beast::error_code ec, std::size_t) { self->socket_.shutdown(tcp::socket::shutdown_send, ec); self->deadline_.cancel(); }); } That works, but this is not quite enough: my goal here is to isolate my user code from the overly long compilation times imposed by this huge boost::beast. Maybe I can include the request & response headers without pulling in the kitchen sink with it, but I don't quite trust it. So let's wrap the `http::response` in some class so I can keep my headers nice and small: class http_response { public: http_response(http::response<http::dynamic_body> &response) : response_(response) {} void set_status(int status) { response_.result(status); } void set_header(const std::string &title, const std::string &value) { response_.set(title, value); } void set_body(const std::string &body) { beast::ostream(response_.body()) << body; } private: http::response<http::dynamic_body> &response_; }; Nothing fancy. And with a forward declaration I should be able to avoid including the response in the header that defines that class. Now I need to modify my business code accordingly: void respond(http_response &response, const http::request<http::dynamic_body> &request) { response.set_status(200); response.set_header("Content-Type", "text/plain"); response.set_body( "Target = " + std::string(request.target()) + "\n" + "Method = " + std::string(request.method_string()) + "\n"); } Still not free from `http::request <http::dynamic_body>` yet, but one step at a time. And finally, I need to adjust `process_request()`: void process_request() { response_.version(request_.version()); response_.keep_alive(false); response_.set(http::field::server, "Beast"); http_response response(response_); respond(response, request_); response_.set(http::field::content_length, std::to_string(response_.body().size())); auto self = shared_from_this(); http::async_write( socket_, response_, [self](beast::error_code ec, std::size_t) { self->socket_.shutdown(tcp::socket::shutdown_send, ec); self->deadline_.cancel(); }); } Huh, what do you know, this time around it worked. I no longer experience the lifetime issues I've once had. Okay, I guess I'll add the request wrapper, then: class http_request { public: http_request(const http::request<http::dynamic_body> &request) : request_(request) {} std::string target() const { return std::string(request_.target()); } std::string method() const { return std::string(request_.method_string()); } private: const http::request<http::dynamic_body> &request_; }; void respond(http_response &response, const http_request &request) { response.set_status(200); response.set_header("Content-Type", "text/plain"); response.set_body( "Target = " + request.target() + "\n" + "Method = " + request.method() + "\n"); } void process_request() { response_.version(request_.version()); response_.keep_alive(false); response_.set(http::field::server, "Beast"); http_response response(response_); http_request request (request_); respond(response, request); response_.set(http::field::content_length, std::to_string(response_.body().size())); auto self = shared_from_this(); http::async_write( socket_, response_, [self](beast::error_code ec, std::size_t) { self->socket_.shutdown(tcp::socket::shutdown_send, ec); self->deadline_.cancel(); }); } And it still works! Maybe it'll work out in the end? Regardless, thanks for the rubber ducking I guess. My first question remains though: what the hell is going on with the socket? Why can't I just pass a reference along? Why do we even need a move constructor? Is there some special semantics, or `boost::asio` specific arcane, I should be privy to? Loup.
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