Elli is a webserver you can run inside your Erlang application to
expose an HTTP API. Elli is aimed exclusively at building
high-throughput, low-latency HTTP APIs. If robustness and performance
is more important than general purpose features, then elli
might be
for you. If you find yourself digging into the implementation of a
webserver, elli
might be for you. If you're building web services,
not web sites, then elli
might be for you.
Elli is used in production at Wooga and Game Analytics. Elli requires OTP 18.0 or newer.
To use elli
you will need a working installation of Erlang 18.0 (or later).
Add elli
to your application by adding it as a dependency to your
rebar.config
:
{deps, [
%% ...
{elli, "3.0.0"}
]}.
Afterwards you can run:
$ rebar3 compile
$ rebar3 shell
%% starting elli
1> {ok, Pid} = elli:start_link([{callback, elli_example_callback}, {port, 3000}]).
The best source to learn how to write a callback module is src/elli_example_callback.erl and its generated documentation. There are a bunch of examples used in the tests as well as descriptions of all the events.
A minimal callback module could look like this:
-module(elli_minimal_callback).
-export([handle/2, handle_event/3]).
-include_lib("elli/include/elli.hrl").
-behaviour(elli_handler).
handle(Req, _Args) ->
%% Delegate to our handler function
handle(Req#req.method, elli_request:path(Req), Req).
handle('GET',[<<"hello">>, <<"world">>], _Req) ->
%% Reply with a normal response. `ok' can be used instead of `200'
%% to signal success.
{ok, [], <<"Hello World!">>};
handle(_, _, _Req) ->
{404, [], <<"Not Found">>}.
%% @doc Handle request events, like request completed, exception
%% thrown, client timeout, etc. Must return `ok'.
handle_event(_Event, _Data, _Args) ->
ok.
To add elli
to a supervisor you can use the following example and adapt it to
your needs.
-module(fancyapi_sup).
-behaviour(supervisor).
-export([start_link/0]).
-export([init/1]).
start_link() ->
supervisor:start_link({local, ?MODULE}, ?MODULE, []).
init([]) ->
ElliOpts = [{callback, fancyapi_callback}, {port, 3000}],
ElliSpec = {
fancy_http,
{elli, start_link, [ElliOpts]},
permanent,
5000,
worker,
[elli]},
{ok, { {one_for_one, 5, 10}, [ElliSpec]} }.
For more information about the features and design philosophy of elli
check
out the overview.
Elli is licensed under The MIT License.