SPEC 9.2 KB

123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171
  1. This specification aims to formalize the Rack protocol. You
  2. can (and should) use Rack::Lint to enforce it.
  3. When you develop middleware, be sure to add a Lint before and
  4. after to catch all mistakes.
  5. = Rack applications
  6. A Rack application is a Ruby object (not a class) that
  7. responds to +call+.
  8. It takes exactly one argument, the *environment*
  9. and returns an Array of exactly three values:
  10. The *status*,
  11. the *headers*,
  12. and the *body*.
  13. == The Environment
  14. The environment must be an instance of Hash that includes
  15. CGI-like headers. The application is free to modify the
  16. environment.
  17. The environment is required to include these variables
  18. (adopted from PEP333), except when they'd be empty, but see
  19. below.
  20. <tt>REQUEST_METHOD</tt>:: The HTTP request method, such as
  21. "GET" or "POST". This cannot ever
  22. be an empty string, and so is
  23. always required.
  24. <tt>SCRIPT_NAME</tt>:: The initial portion of the request
  25. URL's "path" that corresponds to the
  26. application object, so that the
  27. application knows its virtual
  28. "location". This may be an empty
  29. string, if the application corresponds
  30. to the "root" of the server.
  31. <tt>PATH_INFO</tt>:: The remainder of the request URL's
  32. "path", designating the virtual
  33. "location" of the request's target
  34. within the application. This may be an
  35. empty string, if the request URL targets
  36. the application root and does not have a
  37. trailing slash. This value may be
  38. percent-encoded when I originating from
  39. a URL.
  40. <tt>QUERY_STRING</tt>:: The portion of the request URL that
  41. follows the <tt>?</tt>, if any. May be
  42. empty, but is always required!
  43. <tt>SERVER_NAME</tt>, <tt>SERVER_PORT</tt>:: When combined with <tt>SCRIPT_NAME</tt> and <tt>PATH_INFO</tt>, these variables can be used to complete the URL. Note, however, that <tt>HTTP_HOST</tt>, if present, should be used in preference to <tt>SERVER_NAME</tt> for reconstructing the request URL. <tt>SERVER_NAME</tt> and <tt>SERVER_PORT</tt> can never be empty strings, and so are always required.
  44. <tt>HTTP_</tt> Variables:: Variables corresponding to the
  45. client-supplied HTTP request
  46. headers (i.e., variables whose
  47. names begin with <tt>HTTP_</tt>). The
  48. presence or absence of these
  49. variables should correspond with
  50. the presence or absence of the
  51. appropriate HTTP header in the
  52. request.
  53. In addition to this, the Rack environment must include these
  54. Rack-specific variables:
  55. <tt>rack.version</tt>:: The Array [1,1], representing this version of Rack.
  56. <tt>rack.url_scheme</tt>:: +http+ or +https+, depending on the request URL.
  57. <tt>rack.input</tt>:: See below, the input stream.
  58. <tt>rack.errors</tt>:: See below, the error stream.
  59. <tt>rack.multithread</tt>:: true if the application object may be simultaneously invoked by another thread in the same process, false otherwise.
  60. <tt>rack.multiprocess</tt>:: true if an equivalent application object may be simultaneously invoked by another process, false otherwise.
  61. <tt>rack.run_once</tt>:: true if the server expects (but does not guarantee!) that the application will only be invoked this one time during the life of its containing process. Normally, this will only be true for a server based on CGI (or something similar).
  62. Additional environment specifications have approved to
  63. standardized middleware APIs. None of these are required to
  64. be implemented by the server.
  65. <tt>rack.session</tt>:: A hash like interface for storing request session data.
  66. The store must implement:
  67. store(key, value) (aliased as []=);
  68. fetch(key, default = nil) (aliased as []);
  69. delete(key);
  70. clear;
  71. <tt>rack.logger</tt>:: A common object interface for logging messages.
  72. The object must implement:
  73. info(message, &block)
  74. debug(message, &block)
  75. warn(message, &block)
  76. error(message, &block)
  77. fatal(message, &block)
  78. The server or the application can store their own data in the
  79. environment, too. The keys must contain at least one dot,
  80. and should be prefixed uniquely. The prefix <tt>rack.</tt>
  81. is reserved for use with the Rack core distribution and other
  82. accepted specifications and must not be used otherwise.
  83. The environment must not contain the keys
  84. <tt>HTTP_CONTENT_TYPE</tt> or <tt>HTTP_CONTENT_LENGTH</tt>
  85. (use the versions without <tt>HTTP_</tt>).
  86. The CGI keys (named without a period) must have String values.
  87. There are the following restrictions:
  88. * <tt>rack.version</tt> must be an array of Integers.
  89. * <tt>rack.url_scheme</tt> must either be +http+ or +https+.
  90. * There must be a valid input stream in <tt>rack.input</tt>.
  91. * There must be a valid error stream in <tt>rack.errors</tt>.
  92. * The <tt>REQUEST_METHOD</tt> must be a valid token.
  93. * The <tt>SCRIPT_NAME</tt>, if non-empty, must start with <tt>/</tt>
  94. * The <tt>PATH_INFO</tt>, if non-empty, must start with <tt>/</tt>
  95. * The <tt>CONTENT_LENGTH</tt>, if given, must consist of digits only.
  96. * One of <tt>SCRIPT_NAME</tt> or <tt>PATH_INFO</tt> must be
  97. set. <tt>PATH_INFO</tt> should be <tt>/</tt> if
  98. <tt>SCRIPT_NAME</tt> is empty.
  99. <tt>SCRIPT_NAME</tt> never should be <tt>/</tt>, but instead be empty.
  100. === The Input Stream
  101. The input stream is an IO-like object which contains the raw HTTP
  102. POST data.
  103. When applicable, its external encoding must be "ASCII-8BIT" and it
  104. must be opened in binary mode, for Ruby 1.9 compatibility.
  105. The input stream must respond to +gets+, +each+, +read+ and +rewind+.
  106. * +gets+ must be called without arguments and return a string,
  107. or +nil+ on EOF.
  108. * +read+ behaves like IO#read. Its signature is <tt>read([length, [buffer]])</tt>.
  109. If given, +length+ must be a non-negative Integer (>= 0) or +nil+, and +buffer+ must
  110. be a String and may not be nil. If +length+ is given and not nil, then this method
  111. reads at most +length+ bytes from the input stream. If +length+ is not given or nil,
  112. then this method reads all data until EOF.
  113. When EOF is reached, this method returns nil if +length+ is given and not nil, or ""
  114. if +length+ is not given or is nil.
  115. If +buffer+ is given, then the read data will be placed into +buffer+ instead of a
  116. newly created String object.
  117. * +each+ must be called without arguments and only yield Strings.
  118. * +rewind+ must be called without arguments. It rewinds the input
  119. stream back to the beginning. It must not raise Errno::ESPIPE:
  120. that is, it may not be a pipe or a socket. Therefore, handler
  121. developers must buffer the input data into some rewindable object
  122. if the underlying input stream is not rewindable.
  123. * +close+ must never be called on the input stream.
  124. === The Error Stream
  125. The error stream must respond to +puts+, +write+ and +flush+.
  126. * +puts+ must be called with a single argument that responds to +to_s+.
  127. * +write+ must be called with a single argument that is a String.
  128. * +flush+ must be called without arguments and must be called
  129. in order to make the error appear for sure.
  130. * +close+ must never be called on the error stream.
  131. == The Response
  132. === The Status
  133. This is an HTTP status. When parsed as integer (+to_i+), it must be
  134. greater than or equal to 100.
  135. === The Headers
  136. The header must respond to +each+, and yield values of key and value.
  137. The header keys must be Strings.
  138. The header must not contain a +Status+ key,
  139. contain keys with <tt>:</tt> or newlines in their name,
  140. contain keys names that end in <tt>-</tt> or <tt>_</tt>,
  141. but only contain keys that consist of
  142. letters, digits, <tt>_</tt> or <tt>-</tt> and start with a letter.
  143. The values of the header must be Strings,
  144. consisting of lines (for multiple header values, e.g. multiple
  145. <tt>Set-Cookie</tt> values) seperated by "\n".
  146. The lines must not contain characters below 037.
  147. === The Content-Type
  148. There must be a <tt>Content-Type</tt>, except when the
  149. +Status+ is 1xx, 204, 205 or 304, in which case there must be none
  150. given.
  151. === The Content-Length
  152. There must not be a <tt>Content-Length</tt> header when the
  153. +Status+ is 1xx, 204, 205 or 304.
  154. === The Body
  155. The Body must respond to +each+
  156. and must only yield String values.
  157. The Body itself should not be an instance of String, as this will
  158. break in Ruby 1.9.
  159. If the Body responds to +close+, it will be called after iteration.
  160. If the Body responds to +to_path+, it must return a String
  161. identifying the location of a file whose contents are identical
  162. to that produced by calling +each+; this may be used by the
  163. server as an alternative, possibly more efficient way to
  164. transport the response.
  165. The Body commonly is an Array of Strings, the application
  166. instance itself, or a File-like object.
  167. == Thanks
  168. Some parts of this specification are adopted from PEP333: Python
  169. Web Server Gateway Interface
  170. v1.0 (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0333/). I'd like to thank
  171. everyone involved in that effort.