A Common LISP Hypermedia Server
John C. Mallery (JCMA@AI.MIT.EDU)
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5 May, 1994
Proceedings of
The First International Conference on The World-Wide Web, Geneva:
CERN, May 25, 1994. See also the versions published,
postscript.
Keywords: Common Lisp, HTML, HTTP, Hypermedia, Interactivity, Server.
Abstract: A World-Wide Web (WWW) server was implemented in
Common LISP in order to facilitate exploratory programming in the
interactive hypermedia domain and to provide access to complex research
programs, particularly artificial intelligence systems. The server was
initially used to provide interfaces for document retrieval and for email
servers. More advanced applications include interfaces to systems for
inductive rule learning and natural-language question answering. Continuing
research seeks to more fully generalize automatic form-processing techniques
developed for email servers to operate seamlessly over the Web. The
conclusions argue that presentation-based interfaces and more sophisticated
form processing should be moved into the clients in order to reduce the load
on servers and provide more advanced interaction models for users.
Availability:
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/cl-http/home-page.html
Overview
- Motivations: The Introduction
discusses the motivations for developing a Common LISP HTTP server.
- Server: The design ideas embodied in the server are overviewed
in the sections:
- Applications: Screen snapshots
show variety of applications, ranging from
document retrieval and form-processing email servers to artificial
intelligence applications, such as automatic rule induction and natural-
language question answering.
- Programming Language: Several sections provide background on Common LISP, its object system,
and the Common LISP Interface Manager.
- Related Systems: A system for distributing documents is briefly
reviewed in the COMLINK section because it uses the
Common LISP HTTP server as a WWW interface and because it embodies
form-processing technology useful for the Web.
- Recommendations: The Conclusions
recap an argument for extending HTTP/HTML form-processing with design
concepts tested in the Common LISP Interface Manager and
the COMLINK system.
- Pointers: See Acknowledgements,
and References.
A World-Wide Web (WWW) server was implemented in Common LISP (see the
FAQs, the Association
of Lisp Users, and the
ANSI specification) in order to facilitate exploratory programming in the
interactive hypermedia domain and to provide access to complex research
systems over the Web. The general motivation for developing this server was
to provide a computational tool that would strengthen the link between the artificial intelligence
researchers and the distributed hypermedia
community. As the amount of information available over the World-Wide
Web grows, it will become increasingly necessary to deploy intelligent
methods to store, retrieve, analyze, filter, and present information. At the
same time, high-productivity programming tools employed by AI researchers will
become increasingly relevant for testing new ideas in servers before
incorporating them into standards-based clients. A Common LISP HTTP
server provides a bridge that allows AI researchers to plug their systems into
the WWW as it affords developers of distributed hypermedia standards a vehicle
through which they can import effective and relevant technologies. In this
spirit, the conclusion proposes that HTML borrow
ideas from the CLIM Presentation System in
order to modernize the user interfaces in clients, to upgrade the interaction
paradigm, and to achieve a number of efficiency gains for servers.
More specific motivations for this work in the context of the Intelligent
Information Infrastructure Project at M.I.T. were to develop an HTTP
server meeting these criteria:
- High-Productivity Programming: Since all of our research systems
are programmed in Common LISP and are incrementally extensible to meet
research requirements, the server should be fully accessible from LISP and
able to evolve at the same pace.
- Multiple Transport Media: We wanted to generalize our existing
technology, and so, to develop a specification and control framework that
works seamlessly over email and HTTP.
- Automatic Form-Processing: Since we already had an automatic
form-processing substrate developed in an email
server application, the server should be able to apply the same technology
over the Web.
- Dynamic HTML Generation: Since our research emphasizes
tailoring output to meet user requirements, we needed HTML operators that our
research systems could use to generate HTML dynamically.
The current server is excellent for rapid-prototyping precisely because it
builds on Common LISP and provides a fine-grained
vocabulary of operators which are easily combined and modified according to
evolving application requirements and draft protocol standards. The server
itself is an example of rapid prototyping as its 2700 lines of LISP were
written from scratch and debugged by one person in about two weeks. A high-profile demonstration at the end of the
period was well-received.
More recently, an authoring tool for email-based forms was generalized to emit
HTML (Renaud, 1994). This
graphical tool is now used to author forms that can work over email and WWW.
The authoring tool is important for the generalization of email forms across
the Web because form processing in email servers performs automatic retries
when user input is syntactically or semantically incorrect. To implement
automatic retries over the WWW, it is necessary to dynamically generate retry
forms to explain the problem, incorporate all correct answers from the
original form, and allow the user to correct the erroneous answers. Computing
form retries requires datastructures beyond those normally associated with
scripting languages. [Other research ( Houh, Lindblad, &
Wetherall, 1994) arrives at similar conclusions concerning the limitations
of scripting languages for more advanced, dynamic WWW
applications.] In general, more advanced form-based applications
will need the richer datastructures offered by full-featured programming
languages like Common LISP.
The Common LISP HTTP Server implementation was driven initially by the
desire to provide WWW access to email servers and associated document or
survey databases, which were built on the COMLINK
System. Development of a native server offered WWW access not just for
these specific applications, but also, for the COMLINK substrate systems in
general. Thus, any application developed on top of COMLINK would automatically
have the World-Wide Web as a user interface.
The initial applications included:
- Document Search: Retrieve government documents via a the taxonomy of
categories used to distribute them over email (see search
index and form interfaces).
- Standing Search URLs: Find the latest, topically-focused
documents with convenient anchors that prespecify criteria for dynamic
searches (see publications for example).
- Public Access Email: Send correspondence to elected government
officials through a forms interface to an
email server.
- Electronic Publications: Subscribe to electronic publications
through a forms
interface to an email server.
All these applications handle invalid or incoherent user input by returning
dynamically generated HTML that explains the problem and guides the user's
efforts to resubmit.
Advanced Applications
Two artificial intelligence applications were fielded by the end of the
development period:
Integration with both of these large LISP systems was possible within several
of hours of work each.
The main implemented features of the server include:
- All Major Content Types Served: The server not only handles text
and HTML but also serves images (xbitmap, gif, jpeg), audio, video (mpeg), and
application (postscript).
- Major Methods Handled: The server fully supports the GET
and HEAD operations, and handles the POST method to receive user values
in form processing. Proxy service is supported with the conditional GET
method and
URL expirations.
- Object-Oriented Implementation: The Common LISP
Object System (CLOS) is used to implement key server components. This
allows modular programming based on generic operations defined on URL and
server object.
- Typed Condition Handling: The Common LISP condition system is
used to signal various conditions, or errors, that may occur. Condition
classes are defined for all HTTP response codes and are arranged
hierarchically. When most conditions are signalled, execution transfers to a
handler at the top-level of the server. This handler applies a generic
response function to the condition object that transmits the appropriate
response code to the client. Conditions can specialize their method for the
response function in order to customize behavior.
- HTML Authoring Functions: A series of functions and macros
provide a vocabulary of HTML operations, at least as complete as support of
HTML by reference clients. (See the example
code.) The authoring functions serve a number of purposes:
- Defined Interface: Provide a functional interface for generating
HTML under program control, whether on the fly to respond to a user or batch
to write static files.
- More Compact Vocabulary: Quite often authoring abstractions
condense a range of HTML tags into a single parameterized function. For
example, an enumeration macro and a text style macro span the various
available tags. (See the example code.)
- Input Types: Tags for HTML input fields were consolidated in an
abstraction analogous to CLIM presentation types.
Implemented as CLOS classes, input types support
generic methods for accepting input from the user by writing the
appropriate HTML tags during form creation and interpreting returns during
form submission. A single set of arguments for the generic function
standardizes parameters across all input types (audio, date, float, image,
integer-range, multi-line-text, multiple-choice, radio-button, reset-button,
select-choices, string, submit-button, url).
- Query Abstraction: The query abstraction from COMLINK is imposed on HTML/HTTP form processing to
facilitate asking the user atomic questions and responding to user answers.
Although it simplifies accepting single-valued input types, the query concept
has an even bigger impact for input types returning multiple values: Here,
the input type system takes care to reintegrate what HTML treats as
separate queries into a single sequence-valued return. This
conserves code abstraction by preventing every response
function for a form from having to reinvent the same program cliche.
- Smooth Code Evolution: An abstraction layer separates code that
generates HTML from the raw tags. This allows the authoring functions to be
updated when the underlying specification changes, and thereby, obviating the
need to update any calling functions.
- Network Security: The server implements subnet security based on
client IP address.
Uniform Resource Locators are implemented as CLOS
objects, to which URL strings are mapped upon receipt. Although the URL
implementation handles all URL schemes defined by the URL
specification, only the base classes for HTTP scheme will be described
here:
- Path URLs are analogous to a directory in a file system because
they contain no specific URL name and extension type. These can map to a
physical file if desired, or just to a directory hierarchy.
- Object URLs are specific documents with a name and usually an
extension that indicates the kind of data available in the URL.
- Search URLs specify searches for particular databases and may
have an associated HTML document that describes the search. Parameterized export types are defined for kinds of database
interfaced.
- Form URLs are just like an object URL with
extension HTML, except that they take a response function to be called
whenever a client submits (POSTs) form values.
- Computed URLs are much like form URLs except that they fully
compute their response to a GET operation. (See the example code.)
- Computed Form URLs are a cross between a computed URL
and a form URL, where storage of the form HTML in a file is replaced by
a form function computes it. The form returns in the POST method are
handled just like a form URL.
URLs become accessible via the server once they have been exported with
the function EXPORT-URL.
The export function always takes an external URL name and a export
type, which defines the computation used to serve the data denoted by the
URL. In most cases, some additional arguments are provided, depending on
export type. For example, when data resides in a file, the physical pathname
where the data is stored is passed as an argument to export. Similarly, when
a database is searched, the database is passed as an export argument along
with the URL. The following export types are defined:
- Text Types: Text-File, HTML-File, LISP-File, Text-Directory
(computes a display of links to substructure), LISP-Directory, HTML-Directory,
Search HTML-Form, HTML-Computed.
- Other Types: X-Bitmap-Image, GIF-Image, JPEG-Image, Basic-Audio,
MPEG-Video, Postscript-File.
- Searchable Images: GIF-Image, JPEG-Image X-Bitmap-Image can be
exported as searchable objects. An associated response function computes
returned the HTML returned by the server based on the image coordinates sent
by the client.
- Redirect: When a URL has moved to another host, the export types
redirect and temporary-redirect inform the server to signal an HTTP redirect
that tells the client where to find the document.
Over the past year and a half, the author developed a system that performs
sophisticated operations over email, routes documents, and automatically
surveys users. The COMLINK system uses a transaction-controlled,
persistent-object database to represent users, hosts, mailing lists, document
categories, documents, and more. For the purposes of this paper, three
aspects of this system are relevant.
Document Routing and Retrieval
The COMLINK system supports document universes with associated
taxonomies of categories. As documents are distributed through document
universes, they are archived and indexed by some categories. Users can
subscribe to a publications stream or retrieve documents by means of boolean
combinations of categories. When retrieving documents, users may also provide
temporal and quantity constraints to further circumscribe the documents found.
The document retrieval and publication code that stands behind the initial WWW applications uses this technology
as a back-end.
Automatic Form Processing
The COMLINK system interacts with users via textual forms exchanged in
email, as well as conventional ``subject line'' commands, much like those
found in standard listservers. Email servers are associated with a command
interface that provides access to all the forms and subject line commands.
Forms are composed of a series of queries. In addition to a
question or instructions, a query has an associated CLIM presentation type that presents any
default value and parses any new value supplied by the user. Forms are
written to a stream by calling the WRITE-FORM function with a set of value
bindings for each query of the form. As WRITE-FORM calls the generic operation
to present each query, the queries present themselves by calling the PRESENT
method for their presentation type.
Forms are parsed by finding queries and converting the textual input
associated with each query into its internal representation. The basic
procedure for parsing a query is:
- Scan
: Locate the query between special delimiters.
- Intern
: Convert the query name into the query object associated with
the form.
- Accept
: Parse the textual representation that follows the
delimited query name by calling the interned query's accept method, which in
turn calls the accept method for the associated presentation type.
- Handle Errors
: If the query value fails to conform to
requirements of the presentation type, signal the condition so that the user
can be asked to respecify failing queries. Typed error objects carry the
information needed to provide the user with user-friendly explanations about
what was wrong and how to correct it.
When query values are successfully parsed, the form's response function is
applied to the parsed query values to perform the computation associated with
the form. If there are query parsing errors, the system returns to the user a
form with all the correct values defaulted and an explanation about how to
correct the failing queries for successful resubmission.
Graphical Form Authoring Tool
A graphical form authoring tool was written by Renaud (1994) for the COMLINK system. Coded in
CLIM, the interface defines meta-level abstractions for forms, queries, and
presentation types that allow users to define automatic surveys and forms
without having to write LISP code. At the same time, the data structures are
abstracted in a way that forms can be defined dynamically under program
control. For the set of presentation types previously defined for COMLINK,
Renaud defined new presentation and accept multimethods that dispatch on the HTML
presentation view. This means that the same presentation type, which
already worked for the email view, could now operate for the HTML
view, displaying itself in HTML and accepting its input with the HTML
form-processing facilities.
Unlike HTML form input types, CLIM has a rich basic set of presentation
types, which are routinely extended by application programs. After
pairing up the presentation types that match between CLIM and HTML form input
types, Renaud defined the appropriate cliches to accept input from the user
for CLIM presentation types via HTML cliches. Once this small correspondence
set was exhausted, the rest of the task reduced to accepting a text string
from the client and applying the CLIM accept method to parse the input from
the string. Unfortunately, all the computation required to parse input
strings must remain on the server because there is currently no defined
way to tell clients how to accept the input or check its validity.
Conclusions
An immediate goal for the Common LISP server is to develop seamless form
processing over both email and the Web. At first, CLIM presentation types
will be evaluated by the server as it checks the values returned in HTML
forms for validity and parses them into the appropriate internal
representations. After a period of experimentation, during which a good set of
presentation types will be identified, it should be possible to propose a set
of presentation types that clients can handle without undue difficulty. If
servers could transfer definitions to clients, the presentation types
available to remote applications could be extended or refreshed dynamically.
This would require extensions to the HTTP protocol and agreement on a safe
language(s) for transferring presentation parsers and generators to clients.
By relocating the main responsibility for validating user input, considerable
computational load and unnecessary connections can be offloaded from servers
and distributed among clients.
The Common LISP HTTP server makes it possible to interface complex LISP
systems often found in artificial intelligence applications to the World-Wide
Web. Although the immediate goal of the server was to serve as a research tool
for a project on intelligent information routing at M.I.T., the server can be
useful for many other members of the world-wide LISP community and allow them
to participate in the explosion of interesting WWW applications. At the same
time, the rapid prototyping features of Common LISP can now become available
to the WWW research community so that they can more quickly mock up and test
out new ideas.
The server home page at
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/doc/cl-http/home-page.html explains
how to obtain copies of the server and provides further information, including
source access.
This paper and the server was improved by comments from Marc Andreessen, Mark
Nahabedian, Benjamin Renaud, Howard Shrobe, and Robert Thau. Benjamin Renaud
implemented the WWW interface to the rule learning system. Boris Katz adapted
his natural language system to allow WWW access. This paper describes research
done at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. Support for the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory's
artificial intelligence research is provided in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the
Department of Defense under contract number MDA972-93-1-003N7.