QtNetworkNg

中文

Introduction

QtNetworkgNg is a coroutine-based network toolkit. Compare to boost::asio and Qt's QtNetwork, QtNetworkNg has more simpler API which is similar to python-gevent. As the name suggests, QtNetworkNg requires Qt5 framework. For more detail visit:

Introduction to QtNetworkNg

Documents

Visit https://qtng.org/

Features

• General Coroutine with similar API to QThread.
• Socket supports UDP and TCP.
• SSLSocket with similar API to Socket.
• KcpSocket implements KCP over UDP.
• SocketLike unite these three classes, act as the base of other compoments.
• SocketServer provide a framework for network servers. QtNetworkNg use it to implement customizable HTTP proxy and SOCKS5 proxy server.
• HttpSession implements a HTTP 1.1 client, supports connection via SOCKS5/HTTP proxy.
• HttpServer implements a static HTTP 1.1 server, can be used for reversed http proxy.
• NetworkInterface equals to QNetworkInterface, and HostAddress equals to QHostAddress.
• WebSocketConnection implements WebSocket client/server.
• MsgPackStream is a new MessagePack implementation similar to QDataStream
• Cipher, MessageDigest, PublicKey, PrivateKey wrap complicate LibreSSL C API.
• Not yet support Qt 6, because this may break the compatibility with earlier version of Qt 5

Examples

Here comes a simple example to get web pages.

#include <QtCore/qdebug.h>
#include "qtnetworkng.h"

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    qtng::HttpSession session;
    qtng::HttpResponse r = session.get("http://example.com/");
    qDebug() << r.html();
    return 0;
}

And another exmaple to make IPv4 tcp connection.

#include <QtCore/qdebug.h>
#include "qtnetworkng.h"

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    qtng::Socket conn;
    conn.connect("example.com", 80);
    conn.sendall("GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n");
    qDebug() << conn.recv(1024 * 8);
    return 0;
}

To create IPv4 tcp server.

Socket s;
CoroutineGroup workers;
s.bind(HostAddress::Any, 8000);
s.listen(100);
while (true) {
    QSharedPointer<Socket> request(s.accept());
    if (request.isNull()) {
        break;
    }
    workers.spawn([request] {
        request->sendall("hello!");
        request->close();
    });
}

To create HTTP server is even more simpler:

TcpServer<SimpleHttpRequestHandler> httpd(HostAddress::LocalHost, 8000);
httpd.serveForever();

A Qt GUI example to fetch web page.

// main.cpp
#include <QApplication>
#include <QTextBrowser>
#include "qtnetworkng.h"

using namespace qtng;

class HtmlWindow: public QTextBrowser
{
public:
    HtmlWindow();
    virtual ~HtmlWindow() override;
private:
    CoroutineGroup *operations;
};

HtmlWindow::HtmlWindow()
    :operations(new CoroutineGroup)
{
    operations->spawn([this] {
        Coroutine::sleep(1);
        HttpSession session;
        HttpResponse response = session.get("http://www.example.com/");
        if(response.isOk()) {
            setHtml(response.html());
        } else {
            setHtml("failed");
        }
    });
}

HtmlWindow::~HtmlWindow()
{
    delete operations;
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    QApplication app(argc, argv);
    HtmlWindow w;
    w.show();
    return startQtLoop(); // Qt GUI application start the eventloop using startQtLoop() instead of app.exec()
}

And its project file.

# fetch_web_content.pro
TEMPLATE = app
QT += widgets
SOURCES += main.cpp
include(qtnetworkng/qtnetworkng.pri)

As you can see, networking programming is done with very simple API.

License

The QtNetworkNg is distributed under LGPL 3.0 license.

You can obtain a copy of LGPL 3.0 license at: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.en.html

Dependencies

QtNetworkNg require QtCore to build. SSL and crypto is supported using embedded LibreSSL.

Qt 5 - https://www.qt.io/download

Supported Platforms

Linux, Android, MacOS, Windows and OpenBSD is supported.

iOS is not tested yet, as I have no iOS machines. FreeBSD is never tested either.

GZip compression is not supported under Windows if zlib library not present.

QtNetworkNg uses more effective boost::context asm code in arm, arm64, x86, amd64 machines, and uses native ucontext or windows fiber API in other architectures.

Towards 1.0

• Complete reference documents
• Implement a HTTP 1.1 server.
• HTTP supports gzip compression.
• HttpResponse supports stream.
• Support HTTP proxy and cache.
• A simple replacement for libev in Windows.
• Add more OpenSSL functions.
• Support verification/ALPS for https connection.
• Support MacOS and iOS platforms.
• Remove the QtNetwork dependence.
• Support WebSocket Client and Server.

Towards 2.0

• Remove the QtCore dependence.
• provide the API to both Qt 5 and 6.
• Support HTTP/2
• Support HTTP/3
• Support QUIC
• Support Kademlia
• Support BitTorrent protocol
• Support MTQQ

Towards 3.0

• use IOCP under Windows to deliver an ulimate performance.
• use I/O Rings under Windows 11
• use io_uring under the nearlier Linux environment.

Building

1. Clone QtNetworkNg from github as git subrepository.
2. include qtnetworkng/qtnetworkng.pri to your project.pro file. Or include qtnetworkng/CMakeLists.txt to the CMakeLists.txt of your project.
3. include qtnetworkng.h in you cpp files.

How to Contribute

Create a pull request on github.com with your patch, then make a pull request to me.