News Archive (1999-2012) | 2013-current at LinuxGizmos | Current Tech News Portal |    About   

Embedded webserver gains skinny scripting language

Oct 25, 2006 — by LinuxDevices Staff — from the LinuxDevices Archive — 4 views

Real-Time Logic (RTL) has added a PHP-like scripting language to its http daemon for embedded, real-time monitoring and control applications. The Barracuda web server's “Lua Server Pages” (LSP) technology is described as a lighter, faster, more modular alternative to PHP.

RTL first ported Barracuda to Linux about a year ago, touting the daemon's ability to support session-based client updates without polling, through technologies such as AJAX (asynchronous Javascript and XML-RPC). At that time, Barracuda could serve dynamic content through CSP, a technology that let programmers embed actual C and C++ code within their web pages.

RTL says that LSP code is relatively easy to write, since the language uses the familiar ?lsp ... ? construct to embed statements within HTML files. LSP is available as an optional plug-in for Barracuda.

Touted benefits include:

  • Faster than PHP
  • Handles multiple concurrent requests
  • LSP pages can be maintained with commonly available HTML/XML tools
  • Few dependencies (ANSI C runtime library, mainly)
  • “Unobtrusive” API
  • Small binary footprint
  • Readable/modifiable source code
  • Straightforward license for embedding

Additionally, for highly resource-constrained devices, the “larger part” of the Lua core can be removed, including the lexer, parser, and code generator, leaving a “fully functional” Lua server, albeit one that can only run pre-compiled programs, RTL says.

Availability

Lua appears to be available now, both for device licensing, and as part of RTL's “BarracudaDrive” download, aimed at providing home PC users with a way to remotely access and manage their files.


 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.



Comments are closed.