arestcli

arestcli (i.e. Asio REST Client) is a C++ REST client using (non-boost) Asio library underneath.

This is a C++20 port of Microsoft's old REST-SDK (aka Casablanca) using Asio library instead of Boost.Asio, and also forcing the usage of Asio on Windows.

It was created because Boost.BEAST is quite unwieldy (and because it needs the whole of boost!!!).

It suports both:

• HTTP
• web sockets

Usage:

#include <http_client.h>
#include <cpprest/json.h>

using namespace web;
using namespace web::http;
using namespace web::json;

int main()
{
    http::client::http_client clientRestTest(U("http://httpbin.org"));
    web::json::value client_resp;

    try
    {
        auto response = clientRestTest.request(methods::GET, U("/anything")).get();
        
        if (response.status_code() == status_codes::OK)
            client_resp = response.extract_json().get();
        else
            client_resp = web::json::value();

        std::cout << "response status code:" << response.status_code() << "\n";

        std::wstring respStrg = client_resp.serialize();
        std::string s2(respStrg.begin(), respStrg.end());
        std::cout << " -- response:" << s2 << "\n\n";
    }
    catch (web::http::http_exception& exc)
    {
        std::cout << "exc=" << exc.what() << std::endl;
    }
    catch (web::json::json_exception& exc)
    {
        std::cout << "exc=" << exc.what() << std::endl;
    }
    catch (...)
    {
        std::cout << "unknown exc!!!" << std::endl;
    }
}

Websockets:

#include <ws_client.h>

using namespace web;
using namespace web::websockets;
using namespace web::websockets::client;


int main()
{
    try
    {
        websockets::client::websocket_client wsClient();
        wsClient.connect(U("ws://localhost:8080")).get(); 

        websocket_outgoing_message msg;
        msg.set_utf8_message("Hello from client!");

        wsClient.send(msg).get();
        auto response = wsClient.receive().get();
    
        wsClient.close().get();
    }
    catch (websocket_exception& exc)
    {
        std::cout << "exc=" << exc.error_code() << ", txt=" << exc.what() << std::endl;
    }
}

Notes:

• the example VisualStudio project expects Asio (just Asio, not Boost.Asio!!!) to be installed
  • installation path is hardcoded: ../asio-1.28.0 (header-only, OPEN TODO::: automate it!!!)
• also OpenSSL has to be installed
  • you can disable SLL support with the CPPREST_EXCLUDE_SSL define if you don't have/need SSL

Build options:

• CPPREST_EXCLUDE_SSL

• CPPREST_EXCLUDE_WEBSOCKETS

• CPPREST_EXCLUDE_COMPRESSION

• CPPREST_WEBSOCKETPP_DEBUG : enable websocketpp's debug traces (otherwise ther are compiled out and cannot be switched on)

WIP:

• Only some tests on Windows done
• compression disabled and not yet tested (but SSL + websockets working!)
• Only a VisualStudio 2022 solution provided!!! An only working for Debug build, to boot. :-(
• CMake support needed!

Plans:

• Currently a proprietary continuations library by Microsoft is used. I will try to remove this and use C++20 coroutines support in Asio instead.
• The std::wstring is used in the API at the moment. This is irritating, will try to switch to narrow strings (it's UTF8 everywhere, innnit?)