How does ServeHTTP work?

Question

I am studying web development in Golang (Beginner) I came across some code I played around with and I'm not too sure why it works, I looked through the library source code and docs but I only have a vague idea it still isn't clicking. Note the code below:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "net/http"
)

type foo int

func (m foo) ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    fmt.Fprintln(w, "Some text")
}

func main() {
    var bar foo
    http.ListenAndServe(":8080", bar)
}

From what I understand adding ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) as a function method, invokes the handler interface (if I'm saying that correctly) and now foo is of type handler as well. I also understand that http.ListenAndServe takes an input of type handler so that is where my variable bar comes into play. When I run the code and go to localhost:8080 on my browser I get "Some Text" appearing.

EDIT: Implements the interface is the proper term NOT invoke.

Question:

How does this exactly work? How is that ServeHTTP function being accessed?

I tried looking at the source code of the libraries but couldn't pinpoint exactly how ServeHTTP worked. I found these two pieces of code (not sure if this is applicable) that sort of gave me the idea it was implementing a function but need clarification:

// The HandlerFunc type is an adapter to allow the use of
// ordinary functions as HTTP handlers. If f is a function
// with the appropriate signature, HandlerFunc(f) is a
// Handler that calls f.
type HandlerFunc func(ResponseWriter, *Request)

// ServeHTTP calls f(w, r).
func (f HandlerFunc) ServeHTTP(w ResponseWriter, r *Request) {
    f(w, r)
}

I have never seen a type declaration as the one above with HandlerFunc that has a function after the name of the type. I have also seen how methods are declared but not sure what is happening in the code above.

The HandlerFunc has nothing to do with your actual question ("How is that ServeHTTP function being accessed?") but to clarify, it is just a normal type declaration, just as you did type foo int defining foo as being of kind integer so you can do type fn func() where fn is a type of kind func with that specific signature (no args, no return values). So HandlerFunc is a type whose definition is: a function with two arguments (whose types are ResponseWriter and *Request) and no return values. — mkopriva
... and in Go you can define methods on any kind of type that you declare, so having a ServeHTTP method on HandlerFunc is no different from having it on foo. — mkopriva
... and you're right being uncertain in your choice of words. "invokes the handler interface" is incorrect, it doesn't invoke, it implements the interface, these are two different things, actually "invoke an interface" is not a thing in Go. It's also not handler interface it's http.Handler interface, this is important because the former could mean anything the latter is specific and can be found in the documentation. — mkopriva

Henri Koski Henri Koski · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-05T14:10:13

How does this exactly work? How is that ServeHTTP function being accessed?

To answer this question we need to look how http.ListenAndServe works:

func ListenAndServe(addr string, handler Handler) error {
    server := &Server{Addr: addr, Handler: handler}
    return server.ListenAndServe()
}

Here we create a Server with given address and handler and call the ListenAndServer method so let's take a look there:

func (srv *Server) ListenAndServe() error {
    addr := srv.Addr
    if addr == "" {
        addr = ":http"
    }
    ln, err := net.Listen("tcp", addr)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return srv.Serve(tcpKeepAliveListener{ln.(*net.TCPListener)})
}

This method just starts listening given address and calls the Server method with our freshly created listener so let's follow the trail there:

func (srv *Server) Serve(l net.Listener) error {
    defer l.Close()

    ...

    for {
        rw, e := l.Accept()

        ...

        c := srv.newConn(rw)
        c.setState(c.rwc, StateNew) // before Serve can return
        go c.serve(ctx)
    }
}

From the Serve method we can see that this is the point where we accept the new connection and start handling it in it's own goroutine.

// Serve a new connection.
func (c *conn) serve(ctx context.Context) {
    ...
    for {
        w, err := c.readRequest(ctx)
        ...
        serverHandler{c.server}.ServeHTTP(w, w.req)
        ...
    }
}

Here we finally call the ServeHTTP method but as we can see this is not yet our implementation of that function but something from the standard library so let's take a look what that serverHandler struct contains:

// serverHandler delegates to either the server's Handler or
// DefaultServeMux and also handles "OPTIONS *" requests.
type serverHandler struct {
    srv *Server
}

func (sh serverHandler) ServeHTTP(rw ResponseWriter, req *Request) {
    handler := sh.srv.Handler
    if handler == nil {
        handler = DefaultServeMux
    }
    if req.RequestURI == "*" && req.Method == "OPTIONS" {
        handler = globalOptionsHandler{}
    }
    handler.ServeHTTP(rw, req)
}

So here it is finally. If we didn't provide any Handler the DefaultServeMux will be used but since we provided our foo handler ServeHTTP from foo get's called.

And that's it. All of this can be found from server.go

How does ServeHTTP work?

5 Answers