- What's New
Release 70.190 is now available on the FTP site for
most platforms. This includes significant performance improvements,
particularly on LispWorks, the Lisp Machine and Macintosh platforms, many new
features, and numerous bug fixes.
- Major components include a
mature HTTP 1.1 server, a robust caching proxy server, a programmatic client,
a constraint-guided Web Walker, a full-text indexation & retrieval, along
with a variety of Web-related tools and contributions.
- CL-HTTP has mature,
production-quality ports to Microsoft Windows with LispWorks
PC and Apple's Mac OS X with LispWorks for Mac OS X,
which share the same cross-platform development environment as Lispworks for LINUX & UNIX (all with royality-free
runtimes!).
- Completely free systems are
available running CMU Common Lisp under FreeBSD &
Linux over x86 hardware.
- Features
CL-HTTP
is a full-featured server for the Internet Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP
1.1, HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2 & pre-HTML 4.0) that comes complete with source code. The
server has been proven in major production systems and applied in a number of
Artificial Intelligence
systems. Some major features of the server include:
Computed
URLs written in Lisp supersede conventional CGI scripts.
- HTML Synthesis for HTML 3.2 & Netscape 4.0 with generation tools.
- Presentation-based Interfaces with W3P.
- Site Indexing & Information Retrieval with LambdaVista
- Implements GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS, TRACE methods.
- HTTP 1.1 compliant server, programmatic client, Web walker, & proxy.
- Persistent Connections for the server & the basic client.
- HTTP 1.1 Virtual Hosts sharing a single IP address.
- Access Control via subnets, passwords (Basic & Digest Authentication).
- Java & JavaScript support.
- Client-side plug-in support.
- VRML Synthesis tools.
- Constraint-Guided Web Walker.
- Email Hyperarchive Facility.
- Modular & extensible logging.
- Full featured.
- Web-based configuration of the server & user access control.
- Multi-threaded and dynamically linked.
- Extensible, modular, object-oriented architecture.
- Source compatible over major hardware, operating-system and Lisp platforms.
- Advanced condition handling architecture.
- Self-documenting.
- Working examples to get you started.
- Toolkit of Web abstractions.
- Clean abstractions facilitate security audits.
- Rapid prototyping for research, product or protocol development.
- Used in top research laboratories around the world.
- W4 Constraint-Guided Web Walker.
- Disconnected operation on Apple PowerBooks.
- Proven in major production systems.
- Complete source code.
- Digitally Signed Distributions.
- Free.
- Information
WWW-94 Conference Paper:
``Common Lisp
Hypermedia Server'' overviews the motivation and architecture of the
server.
- Documentation: The distribution comes with more detailed online
documentation and examples. The discussion in the listserve
archives may be useful. The references page points
to general Common Lisp resources and tutorials on the net.
- Questions: If you have
questions, send mail to www-cl@ai.mit.edu.
- WWW-95 Conference Paper:
``The
Open Meeting: A Web-Based System for Conferencing and Collaboration''
overviews a major application in wide-area collaboration that uses
CL-HTTP.
- DOW-96 Conference Papers:
- Selected Applications
If you have a publicly available application using
CL-HTTP and you would like it considered for inclusion here, please send a
note to www-cl@ai.mit.edu with the URL
and a one sentence description. If you have a CL-HTTP-powered Web site, please
display the logo.
- Germany
-
Episodic Learner Model:
The Adaptive Remote Tour (ELM-ART)- An introductory Lisp Course based on
the text materials and some intelligent features (e.g. diagnosis of
problem solutions) using a learning environment called ELM-PE.
- Information
about German Leasing Business
- A commercial application that exploits
dynamic web site capabilities.
- United States
-
- AgentSheets
- A community site
for exchanging simulation components designed by end users.
- AstroCartography
- A 3D
virtual reality model of the 45 nearest known star systems with several
portals.
- FAQ Finder System
- A research
system that answers natural-language questions based on USENET
frequently-asked question files.
- Fastus
Server
- A research server at SRI International that tags proper
names in natural language texts.
- InfoStop
- A commerical site
builder for smart citywide directories available for free download.
- Interaction
- Commercial
software for creating dynamic social websites that adapt to visitors can be
downloaded as free demoware.
- InterBook
- A
general tool for authoring and delivering educational adaptive
hypermedia on the WWW from Carnegie Mellon University.
- Letizia
- A user interface agent that assists a user browsing from the M.I.T.
Media Laboratory.
- Motorola Wafer Fab Browser
-
Interfaces a large existing system to the company intranet. No recompilation or rebuild was required.
- Ontosaurus
-
A graphical, hyperlinked interface to several Loom knowledge bases at USC's Information Sciences
Institute.
- START Natural Language
System
- Answers English questions about the M.I.T. Articial Intelligence Laboratory over the Web
and email.
- Untangle
- An
interface to WWW navigational knowledge based on description logics at Vassar College.
- 1996 White House
Publications User Survey
- Uses Dynamic Form Processing in support of hierarchical-adaptive
surveying generalized over email and the Web. Mobile code is emitted to validate input on the client.
- White House
Publications
- Provides a Web interface to a publication system that distributes the daily press
releases over the world-wide internet.
- Community
A number of
people have contributed to the development of CL-HTTP and its port to
various Common Lisp platforms. Perhaps you would care to join us doing cool
things with the Web and the global information infrastructure.
Attention: Before sending email to the community mailing list at www-cl@ai.mit.edu, you must subscribe to
the listserve first. Otherwise, your email will not reach the group. This
measure prevents spammers from polluting the group's mailboxes. Thank you for
your forbearance.
- Extensions, Fixes: If you
write generally useful extensions or fixes, please send mail to www-cl@ai.mit.edu describing them.
- Learn
about new releases, usage, and applications of CL-HTTP as well as
general WWW programming with Common Lisp on www-cl@ai.mit.edu.
- Browse the archives:
- Join the Discussion
- Subscribe by sending email to the listserve. Include the subscribe command
in the message body for good measure.
To:
www-cl-request@ai.mit.edu
Subject: subscribe
subscribe
- Unsubscribe by sending email to the listserve. Include the unsubscribe command
in the message body for good measure.
To:
www-cl-request@ai.mit.edu
Subject: unsubscribe
unsubscribe
- Technology: Email Archives dynamically generated by the CL-HTTP HyperArchive.
- Consider Undertaking a Development
Project for fun and fame!
- Contributions: If
you are contemplating a contribution, please check with www-cl@ai.mit.edu to see if anyone
has already done it or whether there are other people who can help.
Remember that small contributions add up.
- Latest
Common
Lisp Sources
These sources are the latest development versions and may not be consistent
with the current distribution, which can be downloaded below.
-
- Reference
- WWW & Lisp
References offers pointers related to programming Web applications
with dynamic, functional languages.
- Calendar
- Historical Events
Tutorial on ``Creating Intelligent and Efficient
Web Applications with CL-HTTP'' at the European Lisp User Group Meeting,
Amsterdam, 1:30-5:30pm, June 9, 1999.
- Tutorial on ``Creating Intelligent Web
Applications with Common Lisp Hypermedia Server (CL-HTTP)'' at the 40th Anniversary Conference
Lisp in the Mainstream, Berkeley,
1-5pm, November 16, 1998.
- The Lisp Users Group Meeting on
February 5, 1997 in Munich, Germany. The
meeting is parallel to Object
Oriented Programming '97.
- Harvard Conference on the Internet
and Society, May 28-31, 1996, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- Fifth International
Conference on the World Wide Web, May 6-10, 1996, Paris, France.
- Tutorial
on Dynamic Objects and the World Wide Web during the Dynamic Objects Event at Object World East, May 5-6,
1996, Boston,
Massachusetts. The Association of Lisp
Users' 1996 Lisp Users & Vendors Conference (LUV96) meets as part of
this conference. See the Proceedings of the
1996 Dynamic Objects Workshop
- Futures
of Networked Access to the White House: From Public Access Email to
Deliberative Knowledge Webs, lunchtime
workshop at The 6th
Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, March 27-30, 1996, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- Workshop
on Internet Survey Methodology and Web Demographics January 29-30, 1996,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- Fourth International
Conference on the World Wide Web, December 11-14, 1995, in Boston, Massachusetts.
- M.I.T.
and W3C Workshop on WWW and Collaboration, September 11-12, 1995 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- Tutorial
on Programming the Web with Common Lisp, at the the
1995 Lisp Users and Vendors Conference at 8am-12 noon, August 16,
1995. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Contact luv-organizer@ai.sri.com for
further information.
- MAC World
Boston: There will be a series of demonstrations of CL-HTTP and
related technology at 1:30pm each day at the Digitool booth during MAC
World Boston, August 8-11, 1995.
- Distributions
Once you get CL-HTTP running, you can peruse the documentation hypertext by
accessing the root URL on your host. Normally, you can start from
http://your-host.your-domain/. Sometimes on UNIX machines, you may
have to run on a port other than 80. In these cases, you would start from
http://your-host.your-domain:port-number/.
CL-HTTP is distributed as source code. For most platforms, it is
automatically compiled the first time that you load it. Thereafter, the server
loads more quickly because you have a compiled version.
Digital signatures are associated with each distribution file so that
users can independently verify the authenticity of the distribution they receive. These .asc (text) and
.sig (macbinary) files are available from the FTP site at ftp://ftp.ai.mit.edu/pub/users/jcma/cl-http/.
They were generated with PGP software, which is available from http://www.pgp.com (US) and http://www.pgpi.org (international). The public keys for the signer [John
C. Mallery (jcma@ai.mit.edu)] are available from
http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371 using the PGP key search facility. When copying distributions, be sure
to use binary mode so the file remains verifiable.
- Apple Macintosh
Version
- LispWorks
4.3
- Martin Simmons (martin@xanalys.com) has a port
to Xanalys, LLC's flagship
offering in Symbolic
Processing for Mac OS X.
- Macintosh Common Lisp
- CL-HTTP
runs nicely in Digitool, Inc.'s latest Common Lisp,
under either Mac OS Classic or Mac OS X.
- LispWorks
- Martin
Simmons (martin@xanalys.com)
has a port
to Xanalys, LLC's flagship
offering in Symbolic
Processing for the Windows operating system.
- Allegro Common Lisp
-
- John Foderaro (jkf@franz.com) has a beta-test port to Franz Inc.'s Common Lisp for Microsoft Windows.
- LispWorks
- Martin
Simmons (martin@xanalys.com)
has a port
to Xanalys, LLC's flagship
offering in Symbolic
Processing for UNIX operating systems.
- Allegro Common Lisp
-
- Olivier Clarisse (olivier@ai.mit.edu) has a port to Franz Inc.'s Common Lisp for UNIX operating systems.
LINUX.
-
- John Foderaro (jkf@franz.com) has a beta-test port to Franz Inc.'s Allegro Common Lisp version 6.2 for UNIX operating
systems.
-
- CMU Common Lisp
- Douglas
Thomas Crosher (dtc@cmucl.cons.org) has ported CL-HTTP to CMU
Common Lisp which runs on the 18b release of CMUCL, and is considered beta-test software when running
multi-threaded on Intel X86 hardware under FreeBSD and Linux, and alpha-test on the other ports.
- Liquid Common
Lisp
- Gertjan Kersten(gertjan@aie.nl) has an Alphatest port to the Xanalys, LLC's Liquid Lisp for UNIX operating systems.
This port has not been supported in recent times. A new portmaster is needed.
- Symbolics Common Lisp
- The Symbolics
version was used in the early major applications. It is compiled for Open Genera 2.0 (genera 8.5
and 8.4) running under COMPAQ UNIX (OSF 1) on the Alpha as well as Ivory machines under Symbolics Genera
8.3. Users may copy compile the distribution for 36xx class machines. The most advanced CL-HTTP versions
and production-tested versions run under Open Genera 2.0 on DEC Alpha hardware.
:Restore Distribution :Use Disk Yes
Pathname for dummy tape file: ftp.ai.mit.edu:/pub/users/jcma/cl-http/lispm.reel-1
The LispM distribution is (5.3 mb) and is digitally signed, [Signature] LispM users may also
want to obtain the examples and documentation from
ftp://ftp.ai.mit.edu/pub/users/jcma/cl-http/sources.tar.gz (6 mb) [Signature], specifically the
directories http directories: examples, www, standards, and contrib.
Retrieve the source code distribution and start your port by copying the Macintosh Common Lisp port.
Source Distribution: ftp://ftp.ai.mit.edu/pub/users/jcma/cl-http/sources.tar.gz
(6 mb) [Signature]
- Bug Reports
When reporting bugs, it is essential that you explain how to reproduce
the problem, provide a backtrace when relevant, and include the server
version, the Common Lisp version, operating system version, and hardware
configuration.
If possible, use the sources to fix the problem and
send the fix along with the report.
Report bugs associated with specific ports should go to one of the specialized
mailing lists:
Common source or platform independent bugs or issues should be reported to
Bug-CL-HTTP@ai.mit.edu.
Bugs or questions concerning the Constraint Guided Web Walker should be
sent to bug-w4@ai.mit.edu.
