Provided by: libdancer2-perl_1.1.0+dfsg-1_all 
NAME
Dancer2::Cookbook - Example-driven quick-start to the Dancer2 web framework
VERSION
version 1.1.0
DESCRIPTION
A quick-start guide with examples to get you up and running with the Dancer2 web framework. This document
will be twice as useful if you finish reading the manual (Dancer2::Manual) first, but that is not
required... :-)
BEGINNER'S DANCE
A simple Dancer2 web app
Dancer2 has been designed to be easy to work with - it's trivial to write a simple web app, but still has
the power to work with larger projects. To start with, let's make an incredibly simple "Hello World"
example:
#!/usr/bin/env perl
use Dancer2;
get '/hello/:name' => sub {
return "Why, hello there " . route_parameters->get('name');
};
dance;
Yes - the above is a fully-functioning web app; running that script will launch a webserver listening on
the default port (3000). Now you can make a request:
$ curl http://localhost:3000/hello/Bob
Why, hello there Bob
and it will say hello. The ":name" part is a named parameter within the route specification, whose value
is made available through "route_parameters".
Note that you don't need to use the "strict" and "warnings" pragmas; they are already loaded by Dancer2.
Default Route
In case you want to avoid a 404 error, or handle multiple routes in the same way and you don't feel like
configuring all of them, you can set up a default route handler.
The default route handler will handle any request that doesn't get served by any other route.
All you need to do is set up the following route as the last route:
any qr{.*} => sub {
status 'not_found';
template 'special_404', { path => request->path };
};
Then you can set up the template like so:
You tried to reach [% path %], but it is unavailable at the moment.
Please try again or contact us at <contact@example.com>.
Using the "auto_page" feature for automatic route creation
For simple "static" pages you can simply enable the "auto_page" config setting; this means you don't need
to declare a route handler for those pages; if a request is for "/foo/bar", Dancer2 will check for a
matching view (e.g. "/foo/bar.tt") and render it with the default layout, if found. For full details, see
the documentation for the auto_page setting.
Enabling and disabling routes with config and Module::Runtime
For various reasons you may want to be able to turn routes on and off in your app without having to
comment out sections of code. This is easily accomplished if you encapsulate each route handler (or group
of related handlers) in a separate module, and load the wanted routes at runtime.
In "MyApp::Route::Foo":
package MyApp::Route::Foo;
use Dancer2 appname => 'MyApp';
get '/foo' => sub { return "bar" };
In "MyApp::Route::Baz":
package MyApp::Route::Baz;
use Dancer2 appname => 'MyApp';
get '/baz' => sub { return "qux" };
In your "config.yaml":
route_modules :
Foo : 1
Baz : 0
In your main route controller:
use Dancer2;
use Module::Runtime 'require_module';
my $module_base = 'MyApp::Route::';
my %modules = %{ config->{route_modules} };
my @required_modules = grep { $modules{$_} } keys %modules;
require_module( $module_base . $_ ) for @required_modules;
Now your app will expose "/foo" but requests to "/baz" will get a 404 response.
Simplifying AJAX queries with the Ajax plugin
As an AJAX query is just an HTTP query, it's similar to a GET or POST route. You may ask yourself why
you may want to use the "ajax" keyword (from the Dancer2::Plugin::Ajax plugin) instead of a simple "get".
Let's say you have a path like "/user/:user" in your application. You may want to be able to serve this
page with a layout and HTML content. But you may also want to be able to call this same url from a
javascript query using AJAX.
So, instead of having the following code:
get '/user/:user' => sub {
if ( request->is_ajax ) {
# create xml, set headers to text/xml, blablabla
header( 'Content-Type' => 'text/xml' );
header( 'Cache-Control' => 'no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate' );
to_xml({...})
} else {
template users => {...}
}
};
you can have
ajax '/user/:user' => sub {
to_xml( {...}, RootName => undef );
}
and
get '/user/:user' => sub {
template users => {...}
}
Because it's an AJAX query, you know you need to return XML content, so the content type of the response
is set for you.
Example: Feeding graph data through AJAX
Let us assume we are building an application that uses a plotting library to generate a graph and expects
to get its data, which is in the form of word count from an AJAX call.
For the graph, we need the url /data to return a JSON representation of the word count data. Dancer in
fact has a "encode_json()" function that takes care of the JSON encapsulation.
get '/data' => sub {
open my $fh, '<', $count_file;
my %contestant;
while (<$fh>) {
chomp;
my ( $date, $who, $count ) = split '\s*,\s*';
my $epoch = DateTime::Format::Flexible->parse_datetime($date)->epoch;
my $time = 1000 * $epoch;
$contestant{$who}{$time} = $count;
}
my @json; # data structure that is going to be JSONified
while ( my ( $peep, $data ) = each %contestant ) {
push @json, {
label => $peep,
hoverable => \1, # so that it becomes JavaScript's 'true'
data => [ map { [ $_, $data->{$_} ] }
sort { $a <=> $b }
keys %$data ],
};
}
my $beginning = DateTime::Format::Flexible->parse_datetime( "2010-11-01")->epoch;
my $end = DateTime::Format::Flexible->parse_datetime( "2010-12-01")->epoch;
push @json, {
label => 'de par',
data => [
[$beginning * 1000, 0],
[ DateTime->now->epoch * 1_000,
50_000
* (DateTime->now->epoch - $beginning)
/ ($end - $beginning)
]
],
};
encode_json( \@json );
};
For more serious AJAX interaction, there's also Dancer2::Plugin::Ajax that adds an ajax route handler to
the mix.
Because it's an AJAX query, you know you need to return XML content, so the content type of the response
is set for you.
Using the prefix feature to split your application
For better maintainability, you may want to separate some of your application components into different
packages. Let's say we have a simple web app with an admin section and want to maintain this in a
different package:
package myapp;
use Dancer2;
use myapp::admin;
prefix undef;
get '/' => sub {...};
1;
package myapp::admin;
use Dancer2 appname => 'myapp';
prefix '/admin';
get '/' => sub {...};
1;
The following routes will be generated for us:
- get /
- get /admin/
- head /
- head /admin/
By default, a separate application is created for every package that uses Dancer2. The "appname" tag is
used to collect routes and hooks into a single Dancer2 application. In the above example, "appname =>
'myapp'" adds the routes from "myapp::admin" to the routes of the app "myapp".
When using multiple applications please ensure that your path definitions do not overlap. For example, if
using a default route as described above, once a request is matched to the default route then no further
routes (or applications) would be reached.
Delivering custom error pages
At the Core
In Dancer2, creating new errors is done by creating a new Dancer2::Core::Error
my $oopsie = Dancer2::Core::Error->new(
status => 418,
message => "This is the Holidays. Tea not acceptable. We want eggnog.",
app => $app,
)
If not given, the status code defaults to a 500, there is no need for a message if we feel taciturn, and
while the $app (which is a Dancer2::Core::App object holding all the pieces of information related to the
current request) is needed if we want to take advantage of the templates, we can also do without.
However, to be seen by the end user, we have to populate the Dancer2::Core::Response object with the
error's data. This is done via:
$oopsie->throw($response);
Or, if we want to use the response object already present in the $app (which is usually the case):
$oopsie->throw;
This populates the status code of the response, sets its content, and throws a halt() in the dispatch
process.
What it will look like
The error object has quite a few ways to generate its content.
First, it can be explicitly given
my $oopsie = Dancer2::Core::Error->new(
content => '<html><body><h1>OMG</h1></body></html>',
);
If the $context was given, the error will check if there is a template by the name of the status code
(so, say you're using Template Toolkit, 418.tt) and will use it to generate the content, passing it the
error's $message, $status code and $title (which, if not specified, will be the standard http error
definition for the status code).
If there is no template, the error will then look for a static page (to continue with our example,
418.html) in the public/ directory.
And finally, if all of that failed, the error object will fall back on an internal template.
Errors in Routes
The simplest way to use errors in routes is:
get '/xmas/gift/:gift' => sub {
die "sorry, we're all out of ponies\n"
if route_parameters->get('gift') eq 'pony';
};
The die will be intercepted by Dancer, converted into an error (status code 500, message set to the dying
words) and passed to the response.
In the cases where more control is required, "send_error()" is the way to go:
get '/glass/eggnog' => sub {
send_error "Sorry, no eggnog here", 418;
};
And if total control is needed:
get '/xmas/wishlist' => sub {
Dancer2::Core::Error->new(
response => response(),
status => 406,
message => "nothing but coal for you, I'm afraid",
template => 'naughty/index',
)->throw unless user_was_nice();
...;
};
Template Toolkit's WRAPPER directive in Dancer2
Dancer2 already provides a WRAPPER-like ability, which we call a "layout". The reason we don't use
Template Toolkit's WRAPPER (which also makes us incompatible with it) is because not all template systems
support it. In fact, most don't.
However, you might want to use it, and be able to define META variables and regular Template::Toolkit
variables.
These few steps will get you there:
• Disable the layout in Dancer2
You can do this by simply commenting (or removing) the "layout" configuration in the config file.
• Use the Template Toolkit template engine
Change the configuration of the template to Template Toolkit:
# in config.yml
template: "template_toolkit"
• Tell the Template Toolkit engine which wrapper to use
# in config.yml
# ...
engines:
template:
template_toolkit:
WRAPPER: layouts/main.tt
Done! Everything will work fine out of the box, including variables and META variables.
However, disabling the internal layout it will also disable the hooks "before_layout_render" and
"after_layout_render".
Customizing Template Toolkit in Dancer2
Please see Dancer2::Template::TemplateToolkit for more details.
Accessing configuration information from a separate script
You may want to access your webapp's configuration from outside your webapp. You could, of course, use
the YAML module of your choice and load your webapps's "config.yml", but chances are that this is not
convenient.
Use Dancer2 instead. You can simply use the values from "config.yml" and some additional default values:
# bin/show_app_config.pl
use Dancer2;
printf "template: %s\n", config->{'template'}; # simple
printf "log: %s\n", config->{'log'}; # undef
Note that "config->{log}" should result in an uninitialized warning on a default scaffold since the
environment isn't loaded and log is defined in the environment and not in "config.yml". Hence "undef".
Dancer2 will load your "config.yml" configuration file along with the correct environment file located in
your "environments" directory.
The environment is determined by two environment variables in the following order:
• DANCER_ENVIRONMENT
• PLACK_ENV
If neither of those is set, it will default to loading the development environment (typically
"$webapp/environment/development.yml").
If you wish to load a different environment, you need to override these variables.
You can call your script with the environment changed:
$ PLACK_ENV=production perl bin/show_app_config.pl
Or you can override them directly in the script (less recommended):
BEGIN { $ENV{'DANCER_ENVIRONMENT'} = 'production' }
use Dancer2;
...
Using DBIx::Class
DBIx::Class, also known as DBIC, is one of the many Perl ORM (Object Relational Mapper). It is easy to
use DBIC in Dancer2 using the Dancer2::Plugin::DBIC.
An example
This example demonstrates a simple Dancer2 application that allows one to search for authors or books.
The application is connected to a database, that contains authors, and their books. The website will have
one single page with a form, that allows one to query books or authors, and display the results.
Creating the application
$ dancer2 -a bookstore
To use the Template Toolkit as the template engine, we specify it in the configuration file:
# add in bookstore/config.yml
template: template_toolkit
Creating the view
We need a view to display the search form, and below, the results, if any. The results will be fed by the
route to the view as an arrayref of results. Each result is a hashref, with a author key containing the
name of the author, and a books key containing an arrayref of strings : the books names.
# example of a list of results
[ { author => 'author 1',
books => [ 'book 1', 'book 2' ],
},
{ author => 'author 2',
books => [ 'book 3', 'book 4' ],
}
]
# bookstore/views/search.tt
<p>
<form action="/search">
Search query: <input type="text" name="query" />
</form>
</p>
<br>
An example of the view, displaying the search form, and the results, if any:
<% IF query.length %>
<p>Search query was : <% query %>.</p>
<% IF results.size %>
Results:
<ul>
<% FOREACH result IN results %>
<li>Author: <% result.author.replace("((?i)$query)", '<b>$1</b>') %>
<ul>
<% FOREACH book IN result.books %>
<li><% book.replace("((?i)$query)", '<b>$1</b>') %>
<% END %>
</ul>
<% END %>
<% ELSE %>
No result
<% END %>
<% END %>
Creating a Route
A simple route, to be added in the bookstore.pm module:
# add in bookstore/lib/bookstore.pm
get '/search' => sub {
my $query = query_parameters->get('query');
my @results = ();
if ( length $query ) {
@results = _perform_search($query);
}
template search => {
query => $query,
results => \@results,
};
};
Creating a database
We create a SQLite file database:
$ sqlite3 bookstore.db
CREATE TABLE author(
id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL,
firstname text default '' not null,
lastname text not null);
CREATE TABLE book(
id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL,
author INTEGER REFERENCES author (id),
title text default '' not null );
Now, to populate the database with some data, we use DBIx::Class:
# populate_database.pl
package My::Bookstore::Schema;
use base qw(DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader);
package main;
my $schema = My::Bookstore::Schema->connect('dbi:SQLite:dbname=bookstore.db');
$schema->populate('Author', [
[ 'firstname', 'lastname'],
[ 'Ian M.', 'Banks' ],
[ 'Richard', 'Matheson'],
[ 'Frank', 'Herbert' ],
]);
my @books_list = (
[ 'Consider Phlebas', 'Banks' ],
[ 'The Player of Games', 'Banks' ],
[ 'Use of Weapons', 'Banks' ],
[ 'Dune', 'Herbert' ],
[ 'Dune Messiah', 'Herbert' ],
[ 'Children of Dune', 'Herbert' ],
[ 'The Night Stalker', 'Matheson' ],
[ 'The Night Strangler', 'Matheson' ],
);
# transform author names into ids
$_->[1] = $schema->resultset('Author')->find({ lastname => $_->[1] })->id
foreach (@books_list);
$schema->populate('Book', [
[ 'title', 'author' ],
@books_list,
]);
Then run it in the directory where bookstore.db sits:
perl populate_database.db
Using Dancer2::Plugin::DBIC
There are 2 ways of configuring DBIC to understand how the data is organized in your database:
• Use auto-detection
The configuration file needs to be updated to indicate the use of the Dancer2::Plugin::DBIC plugin,
define a new DBIC schema called bookstore and to indicate that this schema is connected to the SQLite
database we created.
# add in bookstore/config.yml
plugins:
DBIC:
bookstore:
dsn: "dbi:SQLite:dbname=bookstore.db"
Now, "_perform_search" can be implemented using Dancer2::Plugin::DBIC. The plugin gives you access to
an additional keyword called schema, which you give the name of schema you want to retrieve. It
returns a "DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader" which can be used to get a resultset and perform searches, as
per standard usage of DBIX::Class.
# add in bookstore/lib/bookstore.pm
sub _perform_search {
my ($query) = @_;
my $bookstore_schema = schema 'bookstore';
my @results;
# search in authors
my @authors = $bookstore_schema->resultset('Author')->search({
-or => [
firstname => { like => "%$query%" },
lastname => { like => "%$query%" },
]
});
push @results, map {
{ author => join(' ', $_->firstname, $_->lastname),
books => [],
}
} @authors;
my %book_results;
# search in books
my @books = $bookstore_schema->resultset('Book')->search({
title => { like => "%$query%" },
});
foreach my $book (@books) {
my $author_name = join(' ', $book->author->firstname, $book->author->lastname);
push @{$book_results{$author_name}}, $book->title;
}
push @results, map {
{ author => $_,
books => $book_results{$_},
}
} keys %book_results;
return @results;
}
• Use home made schema classes
The DBIx::Class::MooseColumns lets you write the DBIC schema classes using Moose. The schema classes
should be put in a place that Dancer2 will find. A good place is in bookstore/lib/.
Once your schema classes are in place, all you need to do is modify config.yml to specify that you
want to use them, instead of the default auto-detection method:
# change in bookstore/config.yml
plugins:
DBIC:
bookstore:
schema_class: My::Bookstore::Schema
dsn: "dbi:SQLite:dbname=bookstore.db"
Starting the application: Our bookstore lookup application can now be started using the built-in
server:
# start the web application
plackup bin/app.psgi
Authentication
Writing a form for authentication is simple: we check the user credentials on a request and decide
whether to continue or redirect them to a form. The form allows them to submit their username and
password and we save that and create a session for them so when they now try the original request, we
recognize them and allow them in.
Basic Application
The application is fairly simple. We have a route that needs authentication, we have a route for showing
the login page, and we have a route for posting login information and creating a session.
package MyApp;
use Dancer2;
get '/' => sub {
session('user')
or redirect('/login');
template index => {};
};
get '/login' => sub {
template login => {};
};
post '/login' => sub {
my $username = query_parameters->get('username');
my $password = query_parameters->get('password');
my $redir_url = query_parameters->get('redirect_url') || '/login';
$username eq 'john' && $password eq 'correcthorsebatterystaple'
or redirect $redir_url;
session user => $username;
redirect $redir_url;
};
Tiny Authentication Helper
Dancer2::Plugin::Auth::Tiny allows you to abstract away not only the part that checks whether the session
exists, but to also generate a redirect with the right path and return URL.
We simply have to define what routes needs a login using Auth::Tiny's "needs" keyword.
get '/' => needs login => sub {
template index => {};
};
It creates a proper return URL using "uri_for" and the address from which the user arrived.
We can thus decorate all of our private routes to require authentication in this manner. If a user does
not have a session, it will automatically forward it to /login, in which we would render a form for the
user to send a login request.
Auth::Tiny even provides a new parameter, "return_url", which can be used to send the user back to their
original requested path.
Password Hashing
Dancer2::Plugin::Passphrase provides a simple passwords-as-objects interface with sane defaults for
hashed passwords which you can use in your web application. It uses bcrypt as the default but supports
anything the Digest interface does.
Assuming we have the original user-creation form submitting a username and password:
package MyApp;
use Dancer2;
use Dancer2::Plugin::Passphrase;
post '/register' => sub {
my $username = query_parameters->get('username');
my $password = passphrase(
query_parameters->get('password')
)->generate;
# $password is now a hashed password object
save_user_in_db( $username, $password->rfc2307 );
template registered => { success => 1 };
};
We can now add the POST method for verifying that username and password:
post '/login' => sub {
my $username = query_parameters->get('username');
my $password = query_parameters->get('password');
my $saved_pass = fetch_password_from_db($username);
if ( passphrase($password)->matches($saved_pass) ) {
session user => $username;
redirect query_parameters->get('return_url') || '/';
}
# let's render instead of redirect...
template login => { error => 'Invalid username or password' };
};
Writing a REST application
With Dancer2, it's easy to write REST applications. Dancer2 provides helpers to serialize and deserialize
for the following data formats:
JSON
YAML
XML
Data::Dumper
To activate this feature, you only have to set the "serializer" setting to the format you require, for
instance in your config file:
serializer: JSON
Or directly in your code:
set serializer => 'JSON';
From now, all hashrefs or arrayrefs returned by a route will be serialized to the format you chose, and
all data received from POST or PUT requests will be automatically deserialized.
get '/hello/:name' => sub {
# this structure will be returned to the client as
# {"name":"$name"}
return { name => query_parameters->get('name') };
};
It's possible to let the client choose which serializer to use. For this, use the "mutable" serializer,
and an appropriate serializer will be chosen from the "Content-Type" header.
It's also possible to return a custom error using the send_error keyword. When you don't use a
serializer, the "send_error" function will take a string as first parameter (the message), and an
optional HTTP code. When using a serializer, the message can be a string, an arrayref or a hashref:
get '/hello/:name' => sub {
if (...) {
send_error("you can't do that");
# or
send_error({reason => 'access denied', message => "no"});
}
};
The content of the error will be serialized using the appropriate serializer.
Using the serializer
Serializers essentially do two things:
• Deserialize incoming requests
When a user makes a request with serialized input, the serializer automatically deserializes it into
actual input parameters.
• Serialize outgoing responses
When you return a data structure from a route, it will automatically serialize it for you before
returning it to the user.
Configuring
In order to configure a serializer, you just need to pick which format you want for encoding/decoding
(e.g. JSON) and set it up using the "serializer" configuration keyword.
It is recommended to explicitly add it in the actual code instead of the configuration file so it doesn't
apply automatically to every app that reads the configuration file (unless that's what you want):
package MyApp;
use Dancer2;
set serializer => 'JSON'; # Dancer2::Serializer::JSON
...
Using
Now that we have a serializer set up, we can just return data structures:
get '/' => sub {
return { resources => \%resources };
};
When we return this data structure, it will automatically be serialized into JSON. No other code is
necessary.
We also now receive requests in JSON:
post '/:entity/:id' => sub {
my $entity = route_parameters->get('entity');
my $id = route_parameters->get('id');
# input which was sent serialized
my $user = body_parameters->get('user');
...
};
We can now make a serialized request:
$ curl -X POST http://ourdomain/person/16 -d '{"user":"sawyer_x"}'
App-specific feature
Serializers are engines. They affect a Dancer Application, which means that once you've set a serializer,
all routes within that package will be serialized and deserialized. This is how the feature works.
As suggested above, if you would like to have both, you need to create another application which will not
be serialized.
A common usage for this is an API providing serialized endpoints (and receiving serialized requests) and
providing rendered pages.
# MyApp.pm
package MyApp;
use Dancer2;
# another useful feature:
set auto_page => 1;
get '/' => sub { template 'index' => {...} };
# MyApp/API.pm
package MyApp::API;
use Dancer2;
set serializer => 'JSON'; # or any other serializer
get '/' => sub { +{ resources => \%resources, ... } };
# user-specific routes, for example
prefix '/users' => sub {
get '/view' => sub {...};
get '/view/:id' => sub {...};
put '/add' => sub {...}; # automatically deserialized params
};
...
Then those will be mounted together for a single app:
# handler: app.pl:
use MyApp;
use MyApp::API;
use Plack::Builder;
builder {
mount '/' => MyApp->to_app;
mount '/api' => MyApp::API->to_app;
};
If you want use redirect from a mounted package to the application's root URI,
Dancer2::Plugin::RootURIFor makes this possible:
package OurWiki;
use Dancer;
use Dancer2::Plugin::RootURIFor;
get '/:some_path' => sub {
redirect root_uri_for('/');
}
An example: Writing API interfaces
This example demonstrates an app that makes a request to a weather API and then displays it dynamically
in a web page.
Other than Dancer2 for defining routes, we will use HTTP::Tiny to make the weather API request, JSON to
decode it from JSON format, and finally File::Spec to provide a fully-qualified path to our template
engine.
use JSON;
use Dancer2;
use HTTP::Tiny;
use File::Spec;
Configuration
We use the Template::Toolkit template system for this app. Dancer searches for our templates in our
views directory, which defaults to views directory in our current directory. Since we want to put our
template in our current directory, we will configure that. However, Template::Toolkit does not want us to
provide a relative path without configuring it to allow it. This is a security issue. So, we're using
File::Spec to create a full path to where we are.
We also unset the default layout, so Dancer won't try to wrap our template with another one. This is a
feature in Dancer to allow you to wrap your templates with a layout when your templating system doesn't
support it. Since we're not using a layout here, we don't need it.
set template => 'template_toolkit'; # set template engine
set layout => undef; # disable layout
set views => File::Spec->rel2abs('.'); # full path to views
Now, we define our URL:
my $url = 'http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?id=5110629&units=imperial';
Route
We will define a main route which, upon a request, will fetch the information from the weather API,
decode it, and then display it to the user.
Route definition:
get '/' => sub {
...
};
Editing the stub of route dispatching code, we start by making the request and decoding it:
# fetch data
my $res = HTTP::Tiny->new->get($url);
# decode request
my $data = decode_json $res->{'content'};
The data is not just a flat hash. It's a deep structure. In this example, we will filter it for only the
simple keys in the retrieved data:
my $metrics = { map +(
ref $data->{$_} ? () : ( $_ => $data->{$_} )
), keys %{$data} };
All that is left now is to render it:
template index => { metrics => $metrics };
NON-STANDARD STEPS
Turning off warnings
The "warnings" pragma is already used when one loads Dancer2. However, if you really do not want the
"warnings" pragma (for example, due to an undesired warning about use of undef values), add a "no
warnings" pragma to the appropriate block in your module or psgi file.
AUTHOR
Dancer Core Developers
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2023 by Alexis Sukrieh.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5
programming language system itself.
perl v5.36.0 2023-12-15 Dancer2::Cookbook(3pm)