HTTP Parser

This is a parser for HTTP messages written in C. It parses both requests and responses. The parser is designed to be used in performance HTTP applications. It does not make any allocations, it does not buffer data, and it can be interrupted at anytime. It only requires about 120 bytes of data per message stream (in a web server that is per connection).

Usage

One http_parser object is used per TCP connection. Initialize the struct using http_parser_init() and set the callbacks. That might look something like this:

http_parser *parser = malloc(sizeof(http_parser));
http_parser_init(parser, HTTP_REQUEST);
parser->on_path = my_path_callback;
parser->on_header_field = my_header_field_callback;
parser->data = my_socket;

When data is received on the socket execute the parser and check for errors.

size_t len = 80*1024;
char buf[len];
ssize_t recved;

recved = read(fd, buf, len);
if (recved != 0) // handle error

http_parser_execute(parser, buf, recved);

if (http_parser_has_error(parser)) {
  // handle error. usually just close the connection
}

During the http_parser_execute() call, the callbacks set in http_parser will be executed. The parser maintains state and never looks behind, so buffering the data is not necessary. If you need to save certain data for later usage, you can do that from the callbacks. (You can also read() into a heap allocated buffer to avoid copying memory around if this fits your application.)

The parser decodes the transfer-encoding for both requests and responses transparently. That is, a chunked encoding is decoded before being sent to the on_body callback.

It does not decode the content-encoding (gzip). Not all HTTP applications need to inspect the body. Decoding gzip is non-neglagable amount of processing (and requires making allocations). HTTP proxies using this parser, for example, would not want such a feature.