alhc 0.2.2

Async Lightweight HTTP Client: A async http client library that using system library to reduce binary size if possible. (Currently under heavy development)
Documentation

Async Lightweight HTTP Client (aka ALHC)

WARNING This library is still in development and VERY UNSTABLE, please don't use it in production environment.

What if we need async but also lightweight http client without using such a large library like reqwest, isahc or surf?

ALHC is a async http client library that using System library to reduce binary size and provide async request feature.

HTTPS Example:

use alhc::prelude::*;
use alhc::*;

use pollster::FutureExt;

fn main() -> DynResult {
    let client = get_client_builder().build().unwrap();

    let r = client
        .post("https://httpbin.org/anything")?
        .header("user-agent", "alhc/0.2.0")
        .body_string("Hello World!".repeat(20))
        .block_on()?
        .recv_string()
        .block_on()?;

    println!("{r}");

    Ok(())
}

Our little request example https with release build can be 182 KB, which is smaller than tinyget's http example. If we use rustc nightly feature plus build-std and panic_immediate_abort, it'll be incredibly 60 KB!

Currently work in progress and only support Windows (Using WinHTTP) and macOS in progress (Using CFNetwork), linux are being planned.

Platform Status

Name Status Note
Windows Working
MacOS Working Will block the thread currently (To be fixed)
Linux Under Development

Features

  • async_t_boxed: Use async-trait instead of async-t, which requires nightly rustc but with zero-cost. Default is enabled.
  • serde: Can give you the ability of send/receive json data without manually call serde_json. Default is disabled.

Compilation binary size comparison

Note: the size optimization argument is: cargo +nightly run --release -Z build-std=core,alloc,std,panic_abort -Z build-std-features=panic_immediate_abort --target [TARGET] --example [EXAMPLE] and some configuration in Cargo.toml

Name Windows (x86_64) Windows (i686) Windows (aarch64) macOS (x86_64) macOS (aarch64) Linux (x86_64)
example https 397,824 284,160 296,960 950,512 992,152 WIP
example https release 181,760 187,904 200,192 336,848 323,048 /
example https release with size optimization 60,416 52,224 59,392 89,056 89,944 /
example parallel 520,704 376,320 393,216 1,130,448 1,192,536 /
example parallel release 195,072 211,456 229,888 353,216 339,576 /
example parallel release with size optimization 66,560 58,880 66,560 105,440 106,456 /
example sequential 402,432 289,280 302,080 952,720 994,920 /
example sequential release 185,344 191,488 203,264 336,792 323,000 /
example sequential release with size optimization 62,464 54,784 60,928 89,016 89,896 /