Mongoose VS libcurl

Stars: 11435 Author: cesanta Star the mongoose repository⭐

A long time ago I had "fun" implementing all sorts of network protocols with such an event based library on C: https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose

I've found myself at this webpage multiple times while trying to minimize the complexity of APIs in my C projects.

My conclusion for now is that C coroutines are something to be left to the implementer. For example: Mongoose (https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose) uses event callbacks to deal with asynchronousness. It is much more pleasant to wrap a library like this in whatever thread/task primitives your system has rather than try to integrate the mythical cross-platform c couroutine.

I remember using mongoose 15 years back. Today i would have considered mongoose(10k+ stars) which is also a mature c/c++ web server[1] if not the licence.

https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/tree/master/examples

Alternatives at the low to medium level of abstraction include civetweb and mongoose, which have a common ancestor. Both of these appear to be C rather than C++, but seem to be production quality and well-documented. Another C library is cpp-httplib, which is probably too low-level for me.

Since this is only going to be used internally would Mongoose be worth considering?

Here’s an example: https://mongoose.ws/

Complex applications, with their interwoven layers of front-end, back-end, and database logic, often obscure bugs. Simplifying the problem by isolating components—such as a React component, a REST API endpoint, or a PostgreSQL query—helps developers focus on the failure point. Spencer Romenco, Chief Growth Strategist at Growth Spurt, shares a case study: “Simplifying and isolating the problem has always been the most reliable way to track down bugs.” When a content delivery dashboard failed to display uploaded videos, Romenco’s team isolated the front-end with mock data, ruling out UI issues, and tested the API with curl, uncovering a backend file path error. This divide-and-conquer approach, supported by tools like Postman for API testing, reduces complexity and accelerates resolution.

It's great of programmers to aim for portability, but frankly it's kind of a stretch that an arbitrary C compiler that is limited in standard support would the same time be sophisticated enough to process these tricks as intended.

In my fork of chibicc (a small C11 compiler) there are plenty of additional logic that were implemented solely to play nice with C tricks from real world projects that could have been easier if they target later standards. The most recent being how curl's build script determines the size of primitive types: they use (sizeof(T) == N) as a case index and expect the compiler to error on case-duplication[1], and I had to add a backtracking loop to check exactly that[2]. I'm not complaining as more error checks isn't a bad thing, however, I'll advise programmers willing to invest in obscure tricks to actually test them on obscure compilers (instead of just flipping -std).

[1]: https://github.com/curl/curl/blob/339464432555b9bd71a5e4a4c4...

HTTP client - Tools like Postman or cURL for testing API calls

A well-documented case that illustrates this problem is CVE-2020-19909, which was recently reassigned as a "critical" vulnerability in Curl — despite being a decades-old, non-exploitable bug. This case exposes the systemic flaws in how CVEs are assigned and scored [Daniel Stenberg’s blog][Hacker News discussion].

For POST, PUT, and DELETE, you'll need a tool like Postman or curl.

To test the API, you can use a tool like Postman or cURL. Here are the routes you can test:

Projects like curl and Homebrew have successfully leveraged patronage programs to achieve financial sustainability. These examples highlight the potential for other projects to follow suit and secure the funding necessary for continued innovation.