Elnode - an Emacs version of node.js

Elnode is an asynchronous web server written in Emacs LISP.

Emacs has had asynchronous socket programming facilities for some time and a few years ago asynchronous TCP server sockets were introduced. I couldn't quite believe that no one had written an asynchronous webserver with EmacsLISP before. So now I have.

When I started looking at actually doing this I intended to knock up just a silly demo. But the more I got into it the more it seemed to me that this could be an important addition to Emacs and that, sometimes, an Emacs LISP async web server could actually be useful.

elnode as personal web server

As soon as I wrote a web server (specifically, something that serves files) I realized that this was quite useful as a hackable local webserver. I can change it very quickly. I can override certain paths to do certain things (even returning just a string for a tiny bit of HTML or something).

( defun nicserver (httpcon) "My local webserver" (elnode-dispatcher httpcon '(( "/$" . (elnode-webserver-handler-maker "~/public_html" )) ( "isnicworking/$" . 'nic-elnode-typing-check-handler)))) (elnode-start 'nicserver 7000)

sidebar Why Node?

Why do we want something that scales up quickly in a RAD tool?

These days, when you're building something for the Internet, you can go from a few hits a day to 5k in a day. You just need to be slash-dotted, twitter-stormed, reddit-raped. Whatever. It's important to be ready to cope with Internet load in just about any app.

This doesn't stop node-like apps from having to be re-written to cope with a long term future. There's no way an app limited to scaling inside a single process on a single box could ever work for load like WooMe gets, for example. But it /will/ scale to more than a thread equivalent and potentially keep you alive through a first sudden interest event like a slash-dotting.

The point is it let's you test that idea out without worrying about only a few 100 people killing it before it's really caught on.

elnode as RAD tool

Elnode is a lot less sophisticated than node.js, but it's no different in concept. It's a fast way of putting an asynchronous single process website together. Something that you can put together quickly that will scale up to biggish usage.

But Elnode has potential because of the RAD environment offered by Emacs. Especially if you're already comfortable inside Emacs, it's very easy to debug Elnode code, you can just re-eval inside a handler function and use Emacs existing (and very cool) debugging tools.

elnode to free your data

But possibly the most important reason for continuing to work on Elnode is the realization that Elnode can help free the data that's currently locked inside Emacs. This is a very serious problem that has been taxing me for a few years. I keep my diary in Emacs but it's difficult to access it outside Emacs (the format is proprietary and depends on ELisp) similarly org-mode is a fantastic tool but has Emacs lock in.

There are exporters for most of this Emacs specific data but of course you have to manually export stuff to use them. What Elnode can do is make it easy to write dynamic exporters of this data in a convenient form for a work flow. Imagine CURLing an Elnode service for your diary in ICS for example

Here's an example Elnode handler to provide your org-mode file in something that a browser can deal with semantically:

( defun orgexpose (httpcon) (org-export-as-xoxo (get-buffer "todo.org" )) (elnode-http-start httpcon 200 '(( "Content-type" . "text/html" ))) (elnode-http-return httpcon (format "<html>%s</html>" ( with-current-buffer (get-buffer "todo.html" ) (buffer-substring-no-properties (point-min) (point-max)))))) (elnode-start 'orgexpose 8002 "localhost" )

Some examples?

Fancy a pastebin inside Emacs? You can SSH to a remote server, fire up Emacs there and then see something you want to cut and paste back to your host. It's bigger than your terminal window. Open up a port mapping back to your Elnode on your local and then use the remote Emacs pastebin client to paste it back to your local Emacs.

( defun elpaste-handler (httpcon) ( if (equal "POST" (elnode-http-method httpcon)) ( let* ((params (elnode-http-params)) (buffer (generate-new-buffer (car (assoc 'paste_name params))))) ( with-current-buffer buffer (insert (car (assoc 'paste_code params)))) (elnode-http-start httpcon "201" '( "Location" . (format "/%s" (buffer-name buffer)))) (elnode-http-return httpcon (format "<a href='%s'>%s</a>" (buffer-name buffer) (buffer-name buffer)))) (elnode-http-start httpcon "200" '( "Content-type" . "text/html" )) (elnode-http-return nitpicking "<p>Upload via pastern api</p>" )))

Of course the main feature of node.js is comet programming which requires the ability to defer a request and process it when the IO comes in later. Elnode provides this capability too:

( defvar simple-defer-switch nil) ( defun simple-defer-handler (httpcon) ( if simple-defer-switch ( progn (elnode-http-start httpcon 200 '( "Content-type" . "text/html" )) (elnode-http-return httpcon "<html>BING!</html>" ) ) ( progn (setq simple-defer-switch 't) (elnode-defer-now 'simple-defer-handler)))) (elnode-start 'simple-defer-handler 8002 "localhost" )

Seeing into the future

Emacs is a big programming environment. Lots of things are coming soon in Emacs.

Emacs trunk now has lexical scope and Elnode absolutely relies on that now. That was always a big reason not to consider ELisp as a real LISP. But that reason is gone.

Threads are coming to Emacs sometime after lexical scope. For Elnode threads are going to make it easier to write code completely inside Emacs. We'll be able to spawn threads instead of processes for dealing with code.

Working with Elnode has been quite fun. I'm working to take it forward. One of the main things that I think I can do is use LISP macros to make programming node like behaviours easier. For example, by hiding the implementation of defers.

The thing I want most is an etherpad like app using Emacs as a datastore. This would let me publish my Emacs rather like a VNC for Emacs. I think a few people might actually find that useful. This is quite a complex Elnode app but I have got something just about working. Hopefully announcements soon.

Reaching out

I hope you'll give Elnode a try whether you're an Emacs hacker or not. It's an interesting idea at least. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the project.