[Nautilus-list] HTTP Libraries

[Ian McKellar <yakk-nautilus yakk net au>]

Hi all,

I've got a little gripe about HTTP libraries.

Currently in Nautilus we use:
o gnome-vfs - for browsing WebDAV repositories and loading data for Bonobo
  components.
o libwww - for viewing HTML files over HTTP when using gtkhtml
o ghttp - many places inside Nautilus
o mozilla's network stuff - viewing HTML files when browsing with mozilla

The libwww dependancy should go away when we move over to mozilla for HTML
completely.

I don't really know why we're using ghttp anywhere - we should be using
gnome-vfs wherever we're currently using ghttp (in my opinion). Its not
that gnome-vfs is better, its just that we already depend on it, and
if we can reduce the number of dependancies thats a good thing. It will
also help us avoid problems like the ones in:
 components/services/install/lib/eazel-install-protocols.c
where there are functions called http_fetch_remote_file, 
ftp_fetch_remote_file and local_fetch_remote_file. The http one uses ghttp,
the local one uses regular local filesystem calls, and the ftp one returns
an error. I we use gnome-vfs for all of these we only need to write the
function once - and FTP would work :-)

Of more concern is the fact that all of the HTTP libraries will maintain
separate sets of cookies, authentication info, referrer history, and have
different user-agent strings. Ramiro tells me we can share the auth info
between gnome-vfs and mozilla fairly easily, but the rest are could be a
problem.

We need both mozilla's network stuff and gnome-vfs because gnome-vfs
doesn't support HTTP POST (and never will), and mozilla's stuff is
inappropriate for general file IO. I don't however see a point to our
use of ghttp. I haven't seen it used anywhere in Nautilus where gnome-vfs
couldn't be used - in fact the couple of places I've seen it used I've
thought that gnome-vfs could be a much better option as we might want to
support ftp or local uris at some point.

Anyway, thats my study avoidance rant.

Someone tell me why we need to use ghttp and I'll shut up :-)

Ian

-- 
Ian  McKellar |    Email: yakk(a)yakk.net |    Web: http://www.yakk.net/
Area: +61 (8) | Home: 9389 9152 | Fax/Voice: 9260 2903 | Work: 9384 4700