RackDAV - Web Authoring for Rack

RackDAV is Handler for Rack, which allows content authoring over HTTP. RackDAV brings its own file backend, but other backends are possible by subclassing RackDAV::Resource.

Install

Just install the gem from github:

$ gem sources -a http://gems.github.com
$ sudo gem install georgi-rack_dav

Quickstart

If you just want to share a folder over WebDAV, you can just start a simple server with:

$ rack_dav

This will start a WEBrick server on port 3000, which you can connect to without authentication.

Rack Handler

Using RackDAV inside a rack application is quite easy. A simple rackup script looks like this:

require 'rubygems'
require 'rack_dav'

use Rack::CommonLogger

run RackDAV::Handler.new('/path/to/docs')

Implementing your own WebDAV resource

RackDAV::Resource is an abstract base class and defines an interface for accessing resources.

Each resource will be initialized with a path, which should be used to find the real resource.

RackDAV::Handler needs to be initialized with the actual resource class:

RackDAV::Handler.new(:resource_class => MyResource)

RackDAV needs some information about the resources, so you have to implement following methods:

• children: If this is a collection, return the child resources.

• collection?: Is this resource a collection?

• exist?: Does this recource exist?

• creation_date: Return the creation time.

• last_modified: Return the time of last modification.

• last_modified=(time): Set the time of last modification.

• etag: Return an Etag, an unique hash value for this resource.

• content_type: Return the mime type of this resource.

• content_length: Return the size in bytes for this resource.

Most importantly you have to implement the actions, which are called to retrieve and change the resources:

• get(request, response): Write the content of the resource to the response.body.

• put(request, response): Save the content of the request.body.

• post(request, response): Usually forbidden.

• delete: Delete this resource.

• copy(dest): Copy this resource to given destination resource.

• move(dest): Move this resource to given destination resource.

• make_collection: Create this resource as collection.

Note, that it is generally possible, that a resource object is instantiated for a not yet existing resource.

For inspiration you should have a look at the FileResource implementation. Please let me now, if you are going to implement a new type of resource.

RackDAV on GitHub

Download or fork the project on its Github page