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Module type Restful.SERVICE

module type SERVICE = sig .. end

The type of service modules; input signature of Make.

This is the type of service module you must write and pass to Make in order to realize a main function to implement your service.

type data 
val version : (string * string) list

Type of version information, displayed by the version subcommand.

This is an alist. It is displayed on stdout, one line per pair, as two tab-separated fields per line, first the key and then the value.

You MAY put any values in here that you like, but there are several conventional values that you SHOULD provide.

      | KEY     | VALUE                                 |
      |---------+---------------------------------------|
      | name    | the name of the application / service |
      | version | the version number                    |
      | ident   | a revision-control system identifier  |
      | author  | the author's name (email address)     |
      | www     | url for the application home page     |
      |         | (for distribution / documentation,    |
      |         | not for the service)                  |
      |---------+---------------------------------------|
     
val init : string list -> data

Type of service initialization function. Takes a processed argv parameter that contains just your application-specific command line options (if any). (If you want to examine the entire argv, including Restful-specific options, just use Sys.argv instead.) Returns a value of type Restful.SERVICE.data, which will be passed as a parameter to your Restful.SERVICE.main function.

init is called exactly once, when the service starts up: not once per client request (except, of course, in CGI mode, where each request restarts the service).

val main : Restful.Types.mode ->
       data -> Netcgi.cgi -> Nethttp.http_status

Type of function that implements a service. Takes a Types.mode, which is for your service to inspect, if desired; a parameter of arbitrary data (typically used to pass in data that you initialize once, at the time the service starts up, rather than once per request); a string list representing the runtime argv of the process (cleaned up to remove the leading parameters that Restful itself requires, leaving only those that you have decided to use yourself); and a CGI activation object. Typically will ultimately call Restful.Content.write or the like to implement your service. Returns a Nethttp.http_status value; simply returning the value of Content.write is the most common way to do this.