CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2015/oss M1504 JJD

M1503: Implement support for missing XMLHttpRequest APIs

The goal of this project was to implement support for missing less-common features of the XMLHttpRequest API for Servo.

Servo

Servo <ref> https://github.com/servo/servo </ref> is a web browser layout engine written in Rust<ref>https://github.com/rust-lang/rust</ref> and is currently being developed by Mozilla Research. The aim of the project is to create a highly parallel environment that allows for many components be handled by fine-grained, isolated tasks.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_(layout_engine)</ref>

Rust

Rust is a multi-paradigm, compiled programming language that is a good language for creating highly safe systems. Rust and Servo have a symbiotic relationship as the development of servo has influenced the design of the language.

XMLHttpRequest

"XMLHttpRequest is a definition of an API that provides scripted client functionality for transferring data between a client and a server."<ref>https://xhr.spec.whatwg.org/</ref> XMLHttpRequest provides a way for data to be retrieved from a URL without having to retrieve the entire page. It supports protocols other than HTTP and can be used to retrieve any type of data.<ref>https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/XMLHttpRequest</ref>

Initial Steps

The following steps were followed to meet the project requirements as per this github page.

1)compile Servo and ensure that it runs on tests/html/about-mozilla.html
2)uncomment the overrideMimeType API in XMLHttpRequest.webidl, and add a stub method that allows Servo to compile again to xmlhttprequest.rs.
3)run the tests via ./mach test-wpt tests/wpt/web-platform-tests/XMLHttpRequest/ and adjust the expectations for any that now pass (tests/wpt/metadata/XMLHttpRequest/)
4)add new override_charset and override_mime_type fields to the XMLHttpRequest structure
5)implement the overrideMimeType steps described in the specifications
6)update any tests that now pass

External Links

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