"Worlds Simpliest Web Server"

Ok thats a bold claim. I'm not going to do the research to prove it. But to me this is awsome.

I'm working on http client and server support for xmlsh so that I can use xmlsh to prototype a content server. Not quite complete yet, but for an example, this code implements a full HTTP server serving content from the current directory tree. I tested it out by cd'ing to the JDK docs/api directory and launching IE with "http://localhost/index.html" - works !

-- xmlsh code

get () { cat ${PWD}$1 ; }
httpserver -port 80 -get get start


--

Thats it !
Every GET request gets executed by the local "get" function which cats out the file.

Speaking of "cat" though, I've decided that I need to implement basic unix commands natively in xmlsh. Originally I didnt want to do this because it was "reinventing the wheel", but the above example is a great case for it. In the above, the get() method acutally has to spawn 3 threads and a subprocess just to cat the file.
There is no native syntax to stream from input to output without running a command.
If these were all xml files then I could use "xcat" which would be very efficient, or even "xread a < file ; xecho $a;" but for text files there is no builtin "cat" command so its subproces/thread time. Yuck !

Similar for some of the basic unix commands like touch,mv,cp,cat,rm,mkdir,ls.
All of these require a unix subsystem currently (like a real unix OS or cygwin).
It would be very nice if these basics were 'built in'. I'm thinking of truely building them in as internal commands (very simplified option set) or as an "extension module". Comments appreciated.
The advantage would be not only performance on the basic commands, but also usability. A pure xmlsh script could depend on these basic commands existing.
For example the test cases check the environment for these commands already, it would be nice if they could be relied on.

Wiki Spam

I've finally had to go authoritarian and turn off self registration on the wiki (http://www.xmlsh.org)

At first I noticed some new posts and was excited someone was helping to add content to the site. Then I read closely and discovered it was subtle spam for paid web service unrelated to xmlsh or even xml. I edited out that part leaving in the good part which was added. Then today I discover pure graffiti, a plain web link added to the top of the page.

This "community authoring" model might work for something heavily trafficked like wikipedia, but its not working for me. I beg my friends to add content, but instead strangers login and spam the site. I don't have the time to keep up after it so I've turned it off.

If you would like to add non-spam content or even correct bad spelling, please let me know and I'll gladly register you and send you the login. If you want to add spam you'll have to try a little harder now. Sorry.

Working on Documentation

As part of moving into Alpha2 and preparing for Beta, I'm slowly working on the documentation.  This is in wiki format on the main site (http://www.xmlsh.org)

Any comments or suggestions on how to improve the documentation greatly welcome. 

Any volunteers to help with documentation even more welcome !

There's a dual purpose for documention.  First, of course, is to help document things so people can use it.  (even for me, I actually just stumbled on a feature I forgot I implemented).

But the other purpose is to flesh out problems that are not obvious in the test cases or the code, but become obvious when documenting.  For example I just realized (and fixed) that the only named port was "error", I hadnt actually implemented the implicit stdin/stdout as named ports.  I only discovered this while cleaning up the port redirection page.

The problem with the 2nd part is its way too easy to get sidetracked and start working on implementation ... 1 minute of documentation can easily lead to hours of implementation ... and hence thats why the docs are in such bad shape :(

Suggestions on what to focus on and how to avoid getting caught up in implementation welcome.

Alpha 2 released

I think this is a major milestone. I released Alpha 2 today (0.0.2.0).
While these version numbers are somewhat arbitrary they are a mental guide.
With Alpha 2 I have semi-formally "frozen" the syntax and will focus on stability, minor feature enhancements and command enhancements while attempting to not change the syntax or at least not change it in an incompatible way. It would be foolish to promise I wont add new syntax (Thinking of try/catch for example ...) But I am going to try to keep any syntax changes minimal and compatible.

I believe this release is ready for production environments, in controlled situations. At my day job, xmlsh has been running in production for about 9 months so you can be assured that I'm not going to do anything that would break that.