Features and Configuration

This package was inspired by the PiLLoW project. The XSB Libwww package offers much better performance and a superset of the PiLLoW functionality as related to the HTTP protocol, but this package does not implement the part of PiLLoW that deals with construction of Web pages.

The XSB Libwww is implemented in C and relies on the basic HTTP functions provided by the Libwww library developed by the WWW Consortium (http://www.w3c.org/Library). Therefore, this library must be installed in order for the XSB Libwww package to work. In addition, XSB must be configured to work with the Libwww library as follows:

    configure --with-libwww=directory-where-Libwww-is-installed

One of the most important aspects of the Libwww package is that it allows XSB to dispatch multiple HTTP requests, which interleave their Web access phases. This can be a significant performance boost. Furthermore, the HTNL and the XML parsers begin their work as the fragments of pages arrive, so by the time the page is fully accepted, it is also parsed. Here is a list of features provided by the XSB Libwww package:

• HTML-4 parser.
• XML parser (non-validating).
• Page fetching (without parsing).
• Form handling.
• HTTP header information.
• Multiple, interleaved HTTP requests.
• Basic and digest authentication.
• Redirection and proxies.