Re: libproxy as external dependency

[Nathaniel McCallum <nathaniel natemccallum com>]

Ali Sabil wrote:
> 2008/10/24 Ross Burton <ross burtonini com <mailto:ross burtonini com>>
>
>     On Fri, 2008-10-24 at 11:09 +0100, Rui Tiago Cação Matos wrote:
>     > In this specific library case, since the API is so simple and you
>     > don't know you need it until you somehow check your app's settings
>     > it's a no-brainer really.
>
>     You could lazy-load the library when you need to access a URL, but the
>     point is that your app shouldn't have to know how to handle proxies or
>     check settings: it just asks the library to handle them.
>
>
> From what I understood, libproxy only allows your to know which proxy 
> to connect to for reaching a specific resource, not how to handle the 
> proxy, as you are supposed to handle them yourself.
This is basically true.  There are three steps to initiating a 
connection to a host through a proxy.
1. Load proxy configuration
2. Evaluate proxy configuration (ex. WPAD, PAC and ignore lists)
3. Establish connection through the proxy

libproxy covers #1 and #2.  #3 is protocol specific.  Since libproxy 
can't implement every protocol out there, it is up to your protocol 
layer to do step #3.  This is the job of, say, libsoup.  So, if your 
application uses libsoup, you shouldn't need to know anything about proxies.

However, some applications have the protocol layer built-in.  An example 
of this might be xchat.  libproxy will do #1 and #2, but xchat will need 
to program #3.

Ideally, each protocol should be split into a library which would 
utilize libproxy.

Nathaniel