HTTP/2 Server Push

Sat, Dec 10, 2016

Go 1.8 is going to feature support for HTTP/2 server push.

HTTP/2 has many features designed to make the Web faster. One of those features is the server push, the ability to send resources before the client asks for it. This feature enables websites to push assets like JavaScript and CSS files before waiting for the web page to be loaded and asking for those resources.

net/http package will support server push by exposing a Pusher API that will be supported by HTTP/2 ResponseWriters. This interface is only implemented when HTTP/2 is available.

In the following handler, we will push main.js rather than waiting for the page to load and invoke the request itself.

const indexHTML = `<html>
<head>
	<title>Hello</title>
	<script src="/main.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
`

http.HandleFunc("/", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    if r.URL.Path != "/" {
        http.NotFound(w, r)
        return
    }
    pusher, ok := w.(http.Pusher)
    if ok { // Push is supported. Try pushing rather than waiting for the browser.
        if err := pusher.Push("/main.js", nil); err != nil {
            log.Printf("Failed to push: %v", err)
        }
    }
    fmt.Fprintf(w, indexHTML)
})

In the Network tab, you can see that the JavaScript file is loaded by server push rather than a GET request.

Push

Push support will be available in Go 1.8 that is available as beta, download and give this a try. A full sample program can by found on this gist.

rakyll.org

HTTP/2 Server Push