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Eve-0.06
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/ Eve

NAME

Eve - The web service creation framework written with events in mind.

VERSION

Version 0.06

SYNOPSIS

Currently Eve supports running web services under Apache2 with mod_perl2 using the PSGI protocol. To run a web service you need to prepare a configuration file, create a startup script and create a PSGI event handler.

The startup script

The startup script is required to prepare all needed objects in order for the web service to run. To make a "Hello, World!" application we need to have a minimal script located in the bin folder of the installation like this:

    #!/usr/bin/perl
    use lib::abs '../lib';

    use warnings;
    use strict;

    use File::Basename ();
    use File::Spec ();
    use YAML ();

    use Eve::Registry;
    use Eve::Support;

    sub main {

        # Make sure we are in a sane environment.
        $ENV{MOD_PERL} or die 'not running under mod_perl!';

        my $dirname = File::Basename::dirname(__FILE__);

        my $file_path = File::Spec->catfile($dirname, '../etc/hello.yaml');

        $Eve::Registry::instance = Eve::Registry->new(%{
            YAML::LoadFile(
                Eve::Support::open(mode => '<', file => $file_path))});

        $Eve::Registry::instance->bind();

        return;
    }

    main();

    1;

The configuration file

As you can see from the startup script example, the application draws its initialization parameters from the hello.yaml file which is located in the etc folder of the installation:

    base_uri_string: http://example.com/base-uri

All keys and values represented in this file will be automatically passed to the registry object constructor.

The event handler

Last but not least, the PSGI event handler script:

    #!/usr/bin/perl

    use utf8;
    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use open qw(:std :utf8);
    use charnames qw(:full);

    use Cwd qw(abs_path);
    use File::Spec;
    use Plack::Request;
    use YAML;

    use Eve::Event::PsgiRequestReceived;

    return sub {
        my $env = shift;

        my $event = Eve::Event::PsgiRequestReceived->new(
            env_hash => $env,
            event_map => $Eve::Registry::instance->get_event_map());

        chdir($Eve::Registry::instance->working_dir_string);

        $event->trigger();

        return $event->response->get_raw_list();
    };

Those scripts must be set as a startup and request event handlers in your VirtualHost apache setting:

    # This is the startup script, it will be run on each apache service
    # start
    PerlPostConfigRequire /var/www/helloworld/bin/startup.pl

    PerlSetupEnv Off
    SetHandler perl-script
    PerlResponseHandler Plack::Handler::Apache2

    # This is the PSGI request event handler script
    PerlSetVar psgi_app /var/www/dev/eve/bin/http.psgi

DESCRIPTION

Layers of the system

The first layer of the system is the application layer that is responsible for assembling all the components and dealing with features specific to the type of the built program. It is the entry point of the system. This layer operates with the delegation layer.

The second one is the delegation layer. It is a control delegation facility based on a map of controlling events and handling code. For example an event of the "blog post entry creation" type could initiate delegation of control to quota check and statistics handlers independently. This layer operates with the controlling layer and could be requested by any other layer.

The third one is the controlling layer. Some applications, like web services, could consist of many handling code parts mapped to many types of controlling events. Each of the code parts itself could resemble the MVC pattern controller component for example. So to post a new blog post entry we might need to call a blog post creation handler as an original MVC controller. This layer operates with the enterprise layer.

The forth one is the enterprise layer. It might be represented as the model and view parts of MVC pattern components interacting with each other. In case of the blog posting example the model is a set of objects representing a blog and the view is a template engine interface that is responsible for building output. This layer operates with the tools layer.

The fifth is the environmental layer. It includes things like database adaptation code, external systems integration, template and output engines internals. It interacts with databases, web services, operation system and other external information sources.

Registry of services

The Inversion of Control is used as a base framework components manipulation principle. It is reflected on the system as a registry of services. A service is a definition of how the component should be implemented and instantiated and which other components it depends on.

There is a central registry of the framework that contains generic services. Also every subsystem has its own registry that the central one refers to. So we have a hierarchical structure where we can conveniently manage implementations without affecting the problem specific parts.

Controlling events

Another technique we use to favor better decoupling of the components is the Event-driven approach. There are three entities in the implemented concept - an event itself, an event handler and the mapping facility to map events to handlers. One event could be inherited from another. This inheritance is used when triggering events so the derivative will be triggered by handlers listening for its ancestors.

Enterprise modeling

The modeling infrastructure of the framework is based on a set of simple data objects managed by a set of model classes. The data objects are simple field containers with service behavior injections like serialization/deserialization. The domain logic is encapsulated in the model classes. For example a blog post object having a title and text fields is a data object and blogging is a model class implementing such functionality as appending new post, listing blog entries, etc.

The model classes interact with a persistence layer through data gateways. These gateways implement data level functionality adaptation. For example the comments gateway could implement select, insert, update and delete operations for the comments database table and transform data rows into comment data objects and vice versa. As data gateways are differentiated based on data storage logic they can be used by different model classes. For example comments gateway can be used by blogging model and activity stream model.

Running an application

When building an application first of all we need to create the application script. The script itself should create a registry instance, map events to their handlers, setup other application specific stuff and generate the initial event.

AUTHOR

Sergey Konoplev, <gray.ru at gmail.com>

Igor Zinovyev, <zinigor at gmail.com>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-eve at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Eve. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

    perldoc Eve

You can also look for information at:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2009-2013 Igor Zinovyev, Sergey Konoplev.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.