Necko

Short Description

Necko is a platform-independent API for several layers of networking (transport to presentation) that is built on XPCOM. It is currently in use in Mozilla and all of its clients.

Longer Description

• Built on XPCOM and NSPR - Not a stand-alone library
• Implemented mainly in C++
• Continually evolving (quite drastically!)
• Originally located at mozilla/network. This version is now completely deprecated.
• Now located at mozilla/netwerk.

Important Interfaces

Necko has several important pieces:

• nsIOService
• nsIURI
• nsIChannel
• nsIProtocolHandler
• nsITransport

nsIOService

• Provides network utility functions.
• Manages nsIProtocolHandler implementations.
• Creates nsIURI objects from URI strings.

nsIURI

• Represents a URI (scheme://host/path).
• Parent class of nsIURL, which is implemeted by nsStandardURL, which handles standard URL operations.

nsIProtocolHandler

• Manages a single protocol based on a scheme (e.g. http).
• Uses nsIURI instance to create nsIChannel.

nsIChannel

• Uses nsIURI information to create logical connection to resource.

nsIStreamListener

• Listener for connection start, arrival of data, and stop request.

nsITransport

• Represents physical connection (e.g. file descriptor, socket).

References

• Mozilla Networking Library Documentation
• Necko Interfaces Primer
• Darin Fisher's Necko presentation, 2002/02/18
• LXR - seamonkey/netwerk