Warning: Reason support is experimental. We are looking for beta-tester and contributors.

Wrapping

Basics

The server side of Eliom can communicates to the client other kind of data than the raw XML contents of the pages. The wrapper mecanism is used to allow the browser side to access to the contents of variables declared on server side. For instance when we write

Eliom_services.onload {{ Dom_html.window##alert(Js.string %text) }}

the contents of the text variable is sent along the page for the client code to access it.

Server side, when

{{ Dom_html.window##alert(Js.string %text) }}

is executed, the variable text is registered into a table and an id is associated to it. This table will containt all the datas references by variables annotated with % in a page, and will be sent marshalled to the client. On client side the id will be used to retrieve text.

Since all datas are sent in one table, if a variable is referenced multiples times, it will be sent only once, and sharing will be preserved:

let a = ref 0 in
let b = (1,a) in

Eliom_services.onload
 {{
    %a := 42;
    Dom_html.window##alert(Js.string (string_of_int (snd (%b))))
 }}

This code will display 42. After being sent, the client and server side values are distinct: the server side version of a won't be modified by the client side affectation and conversly the client side value won't change if a is changed later on server side.

Special types

Specific wrappers

Usualy, client and server side values are represented the same way, and it is sufficient to only copy their content ( marshalled ) to the client. But certain types can't be transmitted this easilly: for instance, services.

Those values must be transformed before marshalling: We need for this to use specific wrappers. This wrapping mechanism is defined in Eliom_wrap.

Before sending, the values goes throught Eliom_wrap.wrap wich transform marked values. A value marked is a value which have as its last field a value of type Eliom_wrap.wrapper. For instance

type marked_tupple = ( int * ... * marked_tupple Eliom_wrap.wrapper )
type marked_record =
     { f1 : int;
          ...
       fn : marked_record Eliom_wrap.wrapper }

but not

type not_marked_tupple = ( int * ... * marked_tupple Eliom_wrap.wrapper * float )
type not_marked_tupple = ( int * ... * ( int * marked_tupple Eliom_wrap.wrapper ) )
type not_marked_tupple = ( int * ... * marked_tupple Eliom_wrap.wrapper list )
type not_marked_record =
     { f1 : int;
          ...
       fn : marked_record Eliom_wrap.wrapper;
       fk : float; }

A wrapper is created by the Eliom_wrap.create_wrapper function. It takes a function as parameter wich will be called to transform the value during the wrapping. There is also a special wrapper Eliom_wrap.empty_wrapper wich does nothing. It is usefull to stop calling the wrapper on a value: If there is still a wrapper in a value after its transformation, it will be called another time, potentially leading to an infinite loop.

For instance

type v = Fun of unit -> int | Value of int
type wrapped_type = ( v * wrapped_type)
let wrapper = Eliom_wrap.create_wrapper (function
     | Value i,wrapper -> Value i, Eliom_wrap.empty_wrapper
     | Fun f,wrapper -> Value (f ()), Eliom_wrap.empty_wrapper)
let v = ( Fun (fun () -> 1), wrapper )
let _,(v', empty_wrapper) = Eliom_wrap.wrap v

At that time v" will be Value 1. Notice that Eliom_wrap.create_wrapper does not enforce the output type of the wrapping function to be the same as the input type: Eliom_wrap is to be use with much caution! Do not use it if you don't understand how it works, it may lead to unpredictable segmentation faults and corrupted memory.

Specific unwrappers

We may also want to modify the value at unwrapping time. It is the case for instance of the type Eliom_react.Up.t. On server side, it is transformed to a service, and the service is transformed to a function wich call it on client side.

To do this, we use specific unwrappers. A value is marked by an unwrapper the same way as with wrappers: A value is marked if its last field is a value of type Eliom_wrap.unwrapper. An unwrapper does not contain functions, it only contains an identifier of type Eliom_wrap.unwrap_id. On client side a function can be registered to transformed values marked with an id: Eliom_client_unwrap.register_unwrapper.

type marked_int = (int * marked_int Eliom_wrap.unwrapper)

{shared{let marked_int_id = 123456}}

let v : marked_int = ( 10, Eliom_wrap.create_unwrapper (Eliom_wrap.id_of_int marked_int_id))

{client{
  let marked_int_unwrapper ( i, unwrapper ) = ( fun j -> i + j )
  let id = Eliom_client_unwrap.id_of_int marked_int_id
  let () = Eliom_client_unwrap.register_unwrapper id marked_int_unwrapper
}}

When the client will receive the value v it will transform it to fun j -> j + 10

Thoses id are globals, take care of not using an existing one, you could for instance use the name of you type hashed as id. Consider those below 1024 to be reserved to Eliom internals.

Eliom specific types

The Eliom types that are marked are:

Additionnal notes for XML

Client and server side behaviour differ:

  • On server side XML is a tree wich allow sharing. i.e. it can be an acyclic graph.
  • On client side XML use the internal browser representation wich doesn't allow sharing

This can affect the behaviour for instance when doing:

let a = div []
let b = div [a;a]
let c = div [pcdata "text"]

...

  {{ Dom.appendChild %a %c }}

when the value was sent, the node a was copied 2 times and only the second one is referenced by %a: the node c will be added as a child to the second a not to the first one.