gopher.cr

An implementation of RFC 1437, the Gopher protocol.

This repository is 2 things:

1. A library that implements the Gopher protocol
2. An example server that serves Gopher requests

Gopher Protocol

The Gopher protocol consists of 2 phases: request & response.

Like its relative HTTP, clients makes a request for a URI to the server, and the server responds. Unlike HTTP, however, there are no headers, caching, MIME response types, keepalives, etc. This makes the protocol both simpler and less featureful.

Requests

A request to a gopher:// server consists of a single line, containing a URI (called a selector):

/1stuff/1and/1nonsense/0intro.txt\r\n

the server then resolves that request into a response, and renders it back to the client.

Responses

A Response can be one of 3 things:

• a menu of further choices a user can make
• a resource (a file, or a another server)
• an error

A copy of the RFC that describes the protocol is included in this repo

Using this library

To use this library, you need to:

1. Create a Server object
2. Provide it with Resolver(s) that instruct it how to find content
3. Tell the server to listen for requests!

A good example for how this can be done exists in src/example.cr

If you're looking for a more turnkey solution, check out its sister project Port70.

Development

Testing on the application is built using the excellent minitest.cr.

Run tests with crystal spec.