Re: looking for web-server information

[ptg@ccs.neu.edu (Paul T. Graunke)]

> Hi, I'm trying to find some documentation about the web-server in PLT,
> but haven't been able to find much.
> 
> I hoped there would be something at http://download.plt-scheme.org/doc/
> perhaps in the libraries manual, but no dice. I've read
> collects/web-server/doc.txt
> and also dug up the paper at
> http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/Publications/#esop2001-gkvf
> ("Programming the Web with High-Level Programming Languages").

You already found most of the documentation.  The server also serves
documentation, which mostly just repeats the doc.txt.

> Could you please cite this paper and any other helpful documentation in
> the doc.txt?

Good idea.  Done for the next release.

> I'm using PLT 200alpha12. I'm pretty new to plt-scheme and I have
> a bunch of questions. Is there anything like meta-point (find
> definition)
> in DrScheme?

Click on the little rectangle that says (define ...).

> Is there any other documentation for the PLT web server?
Just the documentation it serves.

> How are web-server URLs decoded?
I'm not sure what you're refering to exactly.  The paper you found describes
the funny URLs for interactive servlets, though they aren't necessary to
understand to use the server.  The doc.txt documents two "Special URLs" under
the section with that name.  Any URL whose path starts with "servlets"
refers to a servlet in the servlets directory instead of refering to a
served-verbatum file.  All other URLs refer to a document in the htdocs
directory.

> What are all the magic directories?
I kind of answered this above.  Starting the server and clicking on
the configuration link will bring up forms to see and edit where special
directories go.

> I can't seem to find any log file anywhere, so debugging my servlets is
> very difficult. Where is it supposed to be created? I found
> (log-file-path ".web-log")
> in configuration-table, but I can't seem to find any file with a name
> like that
> anywhere in my web-server directory.

Yes, this was confusing, so the log file will (again) reside with the
rest of the configuration files.  I moved it to the user's home directory
by default so it would always be writable, even if the user running the server
differs from the user who installed the server.

> The example servlets are working ok for me. But I've tried running the
> example
> servlets in DrScheme with the web-server teachpack loaded, but they
> don't
> seem to work there at all.

Yes, the teachpack documentation is under construction.  There is a brief
section in the current doc.txt explaining that the teachpack provides 
top level definitions that match the unit imports that servlets receive.

> I'm still a bit confused - why does it return
> 
> SHARED and -6- in the following?
> =20
> (shared ((-6- "Hello, Web!"))...
> =20
> thanks
>  -steve
> =20

I'm not sure what "it" is here.

I've updated the doc.txt to include clarifications from this email.

Thanks,

Paul Graunke