Display dynamic content from embedded web server

I have an embedded device running a slimmed down version of a HTTP server. Currently, it can display static HTML pages. Here is an example of how it displays a static HTML page:

   char *text="HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\nContent-Type: text/html\r\n\r\n"
          "<html><body>Hello World!</body></html>";
   IPWrite(socket, (uint8*)text, (int)strlen(text));
   IPClose(socket);

What I'd like to do is display dynamic content, e.g. a reading from a sensor. What I thought of so far is to have the page refresh every once in awhile with

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="600">

and use sprintf() to attach the sensor reading to the text variable for the response.

Is there a way I can do this without having to refresh the page constantly?

Solution

You can try the following (from my experience) approach: - Divide static and dynamic content, minimize dynamic content.

Create a pseudo CGI interface, i.e. URL your_embedded_site/sensor.cgi should be bound to generation of the following HTTP response:

sprintf(cgi_str, "HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\nContent-Type: text\r\nContent-Length: %d\r\n\r\nvalue=%02d", 8, sensor_value);

or just (that's all about your design considerations):

sprintf(cgi_str, "HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\nContent-Type: text\r\nContent-Length: %d\r\n\r\n%02d", 2, sensor_value);

Use simple javascript or small java applet to request periodically your_embedded_site/sensor.cgi. Note that javascript is generally browser dependent and may be switched off, java applet will also require additional static content - some *sensor_reader.class" but it has extraordinary freedom in presenting data and extending simple reading and showing with more features.

This allows to organize communication in very efficient way, instead of reloading of the full page: part of code - user front end - will be executed in browser, other part - back end - on the embedded device.