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Hiker zef:tony-o last updated on 2021-02-15

hiker

usage

use Hiker;

my $app = Hiker.new(
  hikes     => ['controllers', 'models'],
  templates => 'templates',
);

$app.listen;

Pretty easy, right?

explain yourself

hikes => ['controllers', 'models'],

hikes are the directories where Hiker should look for any pm6|pl6 files and check for anything resembling a Hiker::Route|Hiker::Model. Since we all love organization, this parameter accepts an array so you can split your models and controllers.

The Hiker::Routes found in these directories are sorted by the type of path (Regex vs Str) and Strs without optional parameters (see HTTP::Server::Router) are given highest priority, then optional param strings, and then regexes.

templates => 'templates',

Hiker::Route a controller

This role lets Hiker know what this class does. Boilerplate class (controller) would look like the following:

use Hiker::Route;

class MyApp::Basic does Hiker::Route {
  has $.path     = '/'; # can also be a regex, eg: /.+/
  has $.template = 'basic.mustache';
  has $.model    = 'MyApp::Model'; #this is an optional attribute

  method handler($req, $res) {
    True;
  }
}

Note, returning the True value auto renders whatever the $.template is.

Hiker::Model a model

This role lets Hiker know what this class does. Boilerplate class (model) would look like the following:

use Hiker::Model;

class MyApp::Model does Hiker::Model {
  method bind($req, $res) {
    $res.data<data> = qw<do some db or whatever stuff here>;
  }
}

Boilerplate

# hiker init

This will create a boilerplate application for you in the current directory

Run the webapp

# perl6 app.pl6

This will run your webapp in localhost:8080

Request Flow

• Request is received
• Hiker runs through all of the routes it found on startup
• The routes are run through until a True (or a Promise whose result is True) value is returned
• The template specified by the controller is rendered and the result is sent to the client

Templates

Hiker uses Template::Mustache. If the .template specified by the route doesn't exist then a default 404 message is shown to the user.

For the time being this isn't configurable

Stuff to do

• Allow for custom templating engines
• Add a weight attribute to the routes so Regex order can be handled better
• Whatever else the people crave