Question

I want to learn how to create a simple local server in ruby like maybe using webbrick. The main purpose here is that I am creating a web application and I want to do it myself without using any existing framework, so that I can learn the inner workings.

Answer 1

I think you just need to start doing it.

My starting server:

require 'socket'

server = TCPServer.new '127.0.0.1', 8888 

while session = server.accept
  session.print "HTTP/1.1 200/OK\r\nContent-type:text/html\r\n\r\n"
  if request = session.gets
    filename = request.gsub(/GET\ \//, '').gsub(/\ HTTP.*/, '').chomp
    filename = "index.html" if filename == ""
    session.print "You asked for a file called #{filename}"
  end
  session.close 
end

Of course, based on the filename you should try to fetch a file and send it to the client, maybe something like:

displayfile = File.open(filename, 'r')
content = displayfile.read()
session.print content

well if you want to learn, just start coding and trying different things, you may also look at the source code of some webservers on github. But, there is no point in posting here their code.

I just showed you the really basics.