Web server example

This example serves a directory with matchbox --serve. It has BoxLang Markup (.bxm) pages, a static CSS file, and the url, form, cookie, session and cgi scopes. The Web server guide covers the server in full.

Project structure

• index.bxm: Home page. Counts visits in the session and prints the time.
• about.bxm: Prints cgi.server_port.
• contact.bxm: Reads url.name and shows the session id from the cookie scope.
• styles.css: A static file, served as text/css.

How it works

Every .bxm or .bxs file under the webroot is rendered as a template when you request it. Other files are sent as they are. A request for a directory is answered by its index.bxm or index.bxs.

Each page render starts with these scopes:

• url: query-string parameters.
• form: fields of a URL-encoded POST body.
• cookie: request cookies, including MBX_SESSION_ID.
• session: a struct held in server memory for each MBX_SESSION_ID cookie. Values are kept as strings.
• cgi: request_method, script_name, path_info, server_name, server_port, http_host, content_type and content_length.

The server is built on Axum and Tokio and runs the same VM as the matchbox command.

Running the example

1. From the docs/examples directory of the MatchBox source tree, or any directory that contains a copy of web_server:

   matchbox --serve --webroot web_server --port 8080
   

2. Open http://localhost:8080.
3. Visit http://localhost:8080/contact.bxm?name=MatchBox to see URL parameter handling.
4. Reload the home page. The visit count in session.visitCount goes up each time your browser sends the same session cookie.

The server listens on 127.0.0.1 unless you pass --host 0.0.0.0.

[!note] Template tags Use <bx:output> to evaluate #expression# in markup. This example keeps branching in <bx:script> and renders the result with one output block.