Minimal http 1.1 server implementation

Question

Hi,
does anyone know a really simple (< 10 classes?) http 1.1 server implementation which at least offers keep-alive connections?
I only have to process one type of get-request so I believe using one of the big (java) http servers with access control and modules and all that might be too big and slow.

Answer 1

Google for tiny java web server - replace "tiny" by small, embeddable, ...
I'd guess there is a trade-off between HTTP standard compliance and size if you want to stay in the ten class range.
Here is a two class web server, adapted from the Java Socket Tutorial. Doesn't support keep-alive though, implement it yourself... This can even pretty easily be tuned down to one class if it is ok to support one simultaneous connection only. Doesn't quite support all HTTP features though :-)
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class NanoServer {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        ServerSocket serverSocket = null;
        try {
            serverSocket = new ServerSocket(6666);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.err.println("could not listen on port 6666: " + e);
            System.exit(-1);
        while (true) {
         Socket socket;
         try {
          socket = serverSocket.accept();
         } catch (IOException e) {
          System.err.println("accept failed");
          continue;
         new NanoServerThread(socket).start();
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class NanoServerThread extends Thread {
    private Socket socket;
    public NanoServerThread(Socket socket) {
     this.socket = socket;
    public void run() {
     PrintWriter out = null;
     BufferedReader in = null;
     try {
         in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                        socket.getInputStream()));
         out = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
         // Gobble request
         // TODO parse GET + URL from first line; log accesses
         while (true) {
          String line = in.readLine();
          if (isEmpty(line))
              break;
         // TODO examine request URL here, answer according to request
         out.println("HTTP/1.0 200 OK");
         out.println("Content-Type: text/plain");
         out.println("");
         out.println("Hello sailor!");
     } catch (IOException e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
     } finally {
         close(out);
         close(in);
            // What, Socket is not Closeable?
         try { if (socket != null) socket.close(); } catch (IOException e) { }
    public static boolean isEmpty(CharSequence s)
        if (s == null)
            return true;
        int len = s.length();
        for (int n = 0; n < len; n++) {
            if (!Character.isWhitespace(s.charAt(n)))
                return false;
        return true;
    public static void close(Closeable x)
     if (x == null)
         return;
     try {
         x.close();
     } catch (IOException e) {
         // Ignoring exceptions? How naughty!
}