Introduction

C Web Framework is a high-performance framework written in C, designed for developing web applications on Linux. Built on an event-driven epoll architecture that efficiently handles a large number of concurrent connections.

The framework provides a complete set of tools for developing modern web applications: from a basic HTTP server to database integration, WebSocket connections, authentication system, and file storage.

Features

HTTP Server

• Full HTTP/1.1 support
• Flexible routing system with dynamic parameters
• Middleware for HTTP and WebSocket requests
• Built-in filters: chunked encoding, range requests, gzip, cache control
• Multipart/form-data handling and file uploads
• Full cookie support with secure, httpOnly, sameSite
• Automatic gzip compression for supported content types
• TLS/SSL with configurable cipher suites
• Redirects with regular expression support

WebSocket

• Full WebSocket protocol support
• Broadcasting system for client groups
• Named channels with recipient filtering
• Built-in JSON message support
• Middleware for WebSocket

Databases

• PostgreSQL — native support with prepared statements
• MySQL — native support with SQL injection protection
• Redis — support for caching and sessions
• ORM-like operations — model system for working with tables
• Migrations — database schema versioning system
• Query Builder — safe SQL query construction

Authentication and Security

• Built-in registration and authorization system
• File-based and Redis sessions
• Password hashing with salt
• Validators for email, passwords, and other data
• Authentication middleware for route protection
• RBAC — role-based access control system
• Rate Limiting — request frequency limiting (DDoS protection)

File Storage

• Local storage — file system operations
• S3-compatible storage — integration with S3 and compatible services
• File operations: create, read, update, delete
• Multipart upload handling with storage saving

Email

• SMTP client for sending emails
• DKIM signature support for sender authentication
• Email templates

Template Engine

• Built-in template engine
• Variables and loops for dynamic HTML generation
• Model integration

JSON

• High-performance JSON parser
• Data serialization to JSON
• Thread-safe operations
• Correct handling of Unicode and surrogate pairs

Performance and Scalability

• Event-driven architecture on epoll
• Multiple worker threads support
• Connection pool for databases
• Hot reload without stopping the server
• Zero-copy operations where possible

Utilities and Data Structures

• str_t — dynamic strings with SSO optimization
• Array — dynamic arrays
• HashMap/Map — associative arrays
• Logging system with different levels
• Base64 encoding/decoding

Software Requirements

• Glibc 2.35 or higher
• GCC 9.5.0 or higher
• CMake 3.12.4 or higher
• PCRE 8.43 (regular expression library)
• Zlib 1.2.11 (data compression library)
• OpenSSL 1.1.1k or higher
• LibXml2 2.9.13

Optional Dependencies

• PostgreSQL — development libraries (for PostgreSQL support)
• MySQL/MariaDB — development libraries (for MySQL support)
• Redis — for sessions and caching

Use Cases

The framework is suitable for developing:

• REST API — high-performance APIs for mobile and web applications
• Real-time applications — chats, notifications, live updates via WebSocket
• Web services — microservices and monolithic applications
• API Gateway — request routing and proxying
• Admin panels — with authentication, RBAC, and CRUD operations
• File upload services — with local and cloud storage support
• Email services — transactional email sending with DKIM