Middleware in Camping is just Rack Middleware, and if you’re familiar with Rack middleware then you’ll be right at home. I’m going to assume that you have no idea what Rack or Rack middleware is, Let’s learn about it.

The HTTP Request ↑

The web works in a request -> response pattern. When we GO to a webpage our browser is making a request to a web server. That request is processed and a response is sent. We have already covered how a response is mapped to our ruby code through controllers in Chapter 3. Those responses could be any of a number of things, HTML, an image, JSON, CSS. Web servers are pretty capable. When using Camping you’ll generally respond with HTML, CSS, or Javascript, maybe some images, usually a bit of everything.

As that request passes through your application you may need to make some decisions about it. Does the request try to get something with restricted access? Is it a request to a dynamic or cached file? Whatever it is we can write some Ruby code to make some decisions about that request before passing it along to Camping’s router. That’s what Middleware is for.

Middleware is Rack based and follows Rack Middleware conventions. Write a class, name it whatever you want but it must have an #initialize and a #call method.

class MyMiddleware
  def initialize(app)
    @app = app
  end
  def call(env)
    status, headers, body = @app.call(env)
    # Do something to status, headers, and body here...
    [status, headers, body] # return an array of the status, headers, body.
  end
end

The #initialize method must store a reference to an app object that is passed in as a parameter. The #call method accepts an environment parameter that we call env and returns an array with 3 values: status, headers, and body.

Now, when I first saw this I was confused, why do we immediately call Call on the app? Each Rack app receives an array to represent the environment, and then returns that same array at the end. It’s just passing along the status, headers, and body of our request/response object. There could be a lot of middleware all chained along. In fact, the app provided in the initialize method probably isn’t the app at all, but some other middleware. Calling the app with the env data, then making our own decisions on the status, headers, and body, is how we actually chain the middleware together.

Calling @app sets up each middleware in the middleware chain. It’s like taking a break in the middle of washing the dishes, to take out the trash. If you have a lot of middleware it’s like: * start washing dishes. * start taking out trash. * start sweeping the floor. * finish sweeping the floor. * finish taking out the trash. * finish washing the dishes.

Sometimes middleware accepts settings or a block, to get your own middleware to do that write it like this:

class MyMiddleware
  def initialize(app, *a, &block)
    @app = app
    a.each { |setting|
      # do something with each setting
    }
    block.call()
  end
  # ... call and stuff ...
end

Execute implicitly passed blocks with yield:

class MyOtherMiddleware
  def initialize(app, *a) # &block can be omitted, because it's implicitly passed
    @app = app
    a.each { |setting|
      # do something with each setting
    }
    yield # calls implicitly passed block
  end
end

Good Rack Middleware shouldn’t know if you’re running a Camping app, or a Sinatra app, or a Rails app. Keep it framework agnostic. The Rack specification is pretty great at keeping that up.

notes: ↑