Back in the early days of the web, many people learned Perl because of a wonderful Perl library called CGI. It was simple enough to get started without knowing much about the language and powerful enough to keep you going, learning by doing was much fun. While most of the techniques used are outdated now, the idea behind it is not. Mojolicious is a new attempt at implementing this idea using state of the art technology.
Powerful out of the box with RESTful routes, plugins, Perl-ish templates, session management, signed cookies, testing framework, static file server, I18N, first class unicode support and much more for you to discover.
All you need is a oneliner, it takes less than a minute.
sudo sh -c "curl -L cpanmin.us | perl - Mojolicious"
These three lines are a whole web application.
use Mojolicious::Lite;
get '/' => {text => 'Hello World!'};
app->start;
To run this example with the built-in development web server just put the code into a file and execute it with "perl".
% perl hello.pl daemon Server available at http://127.0.0.1:3000. % curl http://127.0.0.1:3000/ Hello World!
Web development for humans, making hard things possible and everything fun.
use Mojolicious::Lite;
# Simple plain text response
get '/' => sub {
my $self = shift;
$self->render_text('Hello World!');
};
# Route associating the "/time" URL to template in DATA section
get '/time' => 'clock';
# RESTful web service sending JSON responses
get '/list/:offset' => sub {
my $self = shift;
$self->render_json({list => [0 .. $self->param('offset')]});
};
# Scrape and return information from remote sites
post '/title' => sub {
my $self = shift;
my $url = $self->param('url') || 'http://mojolicio.us';
$self->render_text(
$self->ua->get($url)->res->dom->html->head->title->text);
};
# WebSocket echo service
websocket '/echo' => sub {
my $self = shift;
$self->on_message(sub {
my ($self, $message) = @_;
$self->send_message("echo: $message");
});
};
app->start;
__DATA__
@@ clock.html.ep
% my ($second, $minute, $hour) = (localtime(time))[0, 1, 2];
<%= link_to clock => begin %>
The time is <%= $hour %>:<%= $minute %>:<%= $second %>.
<% end %>
Single file prototypes can easily grow into well-structured applications. A controller collects several actions together.
package MyApp::Example;
use Mojo::Base 'Mojolicious::Controller';
# Plain text response
sub hello {
my $self = shift;
$self->render_text('Hello World!');
}
# Render external template "templates/example/clock.html.ep"
sub clock { }
# RESTful web service sending JSON responses
sub restful {
my $self = shift;
$self->render_json({list => [0 .. $self->param('offset')]});
}
# Scrape and return information from remote sites
sub title {
my $self = shift;
my $url = $self->param('url') || 'http://mojolicio.us';
$self->render_text(
$self->ua->get($url)->res->dom->html->head->title->text);
}
1;
While the application class is unique, you can have as many controllers as you like.
package MyApp::Realtime;
use Mojo::Base 'Mojolicious::Controller';
# WebSocket echo service
sub echo {
my $self = shift;
$self->on_message(sub {
my ($self, $message) = @_;
$self->send_message("echo: $message");
});
}
1;
Larger applications benefit from the separation of actions and routes, especially when working in a team.
package MyApp;
use Mojo::Base 'Mojolicious';
# Runs once on application startup
sub startup {
my $self = shift;
my $r = $self->routes;
# Create a route at "/example" for the "MyApp::Example" controller
my $example = $r->route('/example')->to('example#');
# Connect these HTTP GET routes to actions in the controller
# (paths are relative to the controller)
$example->get('/')->to('#hello');
$example->get('/time')->to('#clock');
$example->get('/list/:offset')->to('#restful');
# All common HTTP verbs are supported
$example->post('/title')->to('#title');
# ...and much, much more
# (including multiple, auto-discovered controllers)
$r->websocket('/echo')->to('realtime#echo');
}
1;
Through all of these changes, your action code and templates can stay almost exactly the same.
% my ($second, $minute, $hour) = (localtime(time))[0, 1, 2];
<%= link_to clock => begin %>
The time is <%= $hour %>:<%= $minute %>:<%= $second %>.
<% end %>
Mojolicious has been designed from the ground up for a fun and unique workflow.
Take a look at our excellent documentation!
