An Extensible HTTP Client Library for Elixir: Verified with Property Based Random Testing

Abstract

Use cases of the World Wide Web (the Web) constantly evolve. In order to support present and future applications interacting with the Web, a new Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client library is proposed. The present report describes the process of implementing an HTTP client library in the Elixir programming language. The major difference between the current HTTP client library and competing projects in the Elixir landscape is that state and process management are explicit to the user. Property-based and random testing were used during correctness evaluation and have been a success to use in the context of a functional language and an Internet protocol. Four abstractions were built on top of the library where two of them are possible because of the given control over state and process management. Early results tell that the HTTP client library is comparable to existing solutions in terms of robustness and performance.