HTTP Server Programming

Answer 1

I'd recommend grabbing the source for Apache and seeing how they handle it. There's not much point in psuedo code when you can see how the real thing works.

Answer 2

Perhaps you could look at Apache's code for some clues. It is written in C.

Hopefully someone will come along and give a more detailed answer :)

Answer 3

I would recommend looking at GNU libmicrohttpd. It focuses squarely on providing a framework upon which to build HTTP 1.1 servers. It is small and supports keep-alive with and without threading. (Personally I use it without threading. It has several threading models too.)

Even if you decide to write your web server from scratch, I would suggest looking at libmicrohttpd to gain insight in not only how the protocol works, but how the library models "the work flow" of a web server in a very clean way. I think it is a mistake to imagine that keep-alive implies threading and I think it is an impediment to understand keep-alive.

(Regarding Apaches' credits as web server, it is pretty huge, and there is a lot in there not related to protocols, but rather things like its plugin system and so on.)