Running dart in a web server Running dart in a web server dart dart

Running dart in a web server


You can actually run Dart as a web server:

import 'dart:io';main() {  HttpServer.bind('127.0.0.1', 8080).then((server) {    server.listen((HttpRequest request) {      request.response.write('Hello, world');      request.response.close();    });  });}

That starts a web server on the local machine using port 8080. It simply returns "Hello, world".

From there all you need to do is define your routes, actions, etc.


When you create a new "Web Application" using the Dart Editor, it creates a .html file and a .dart file. The html file uses a tag to link to the .dart file, eg:

MyApp.html //contains <script type="application/dart" src="MyApp.dart"></script>MyApp.dart //contains dart app code.

The editor can also generate a javascript file from the .dart file, eg:

MyApp.dart.js //contains dart app code converted to JS

As far as a web server is concerned, these are simply static files that get served to the browser.

The html file contains a link to a special JavaScript script which can identify if the browser being used has native support for Dart (ie, Dartium).

  • If it does, then then the MyApp.html and MyApp.dart pair of files is used.

  • If the browser does not support Dart natively, then the special script dynamically changes the script element to point to the MyApp.dart.js file instead, so that the browser receives the javascript version of your app.

This means that you can copy the three files (.html, .dart, .js) onto any web server (localhost or otherwise), and simply browse to the .html file.

For completeness, the "special script" can be viewed here:http://dart.googlecode.com/svn/branches/bleeding_edge/dart/client/dart.js


Dartium is only a Chromium Browser with the abilty to directly run dart in a "dart vm". This accelerates the development process. The common way to use dart in other browsers and on your webserver is: compile the dart-code to native javascript :)

http://www.dartlang.org/docs/getting-started/sdk/#frog

Frog is the compiler, which compiles dart-code to javascript