NAME
HTTP::Request::Common - Construct common HTTP::Request objects
VERSION
version 6.46
SYNOPSIS
use HTTP::Request::Common;
$ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
$ua->request(GET 'http://www.sn.no/');
$ua->request(POST 'http://somewhere/foo', foo => bar, bar => foo);
$ua->request(PATCH 'http://somewhere/foo', foo => bar, bar => foo);
$ua->request(PUT 'http://somewhere/foo', foo => bar, bar => foo);
$ua->request(OPTIONS 'http://somewhere/foo', foo => bar, bar => foo);
DESCRIPTION
This module provides functions that return newly created HTTP::Request
objects. These functions are usually more convenient to use than the standard HTTP::Request
constructor for the most common requests.
Note that LWP::UserAgent has several convenience methods, including get
, head
, delete
, post
and put
.
The following functions are provided:
- GET $url
- GET $url, Header => Value,...
-
The
GET
function returns an HTTP::Request object initialized with the "GET" method and the specified URL. It is roughly equivalent to the following callHTTP::Request->new( GET => $url, HTTP::Headers->new(Header => Value,...), )
but is less cluttered. What is different is that a header named
Content
will initialize the content part of the request instead of setting a header field. Note that GET requests should normally not have a content, so this hack makes more sense for thePUT
,PATCH
andPOST
functions described below.The
get(...)
method of LWP::UserAgent exists as a shortcut for$ua->request(GET ...)
. - HEAD $url
- HEAD $url, Header => Value,...
-
Like GET() but the method in the request is "HEAD".
The
head(...)
method of LWP::UserAgent exists as a shortcut for$ua->request(HEAD ...)
. - DELETE $url
- DELETE $url, Header => Value,...
-
Like
GET
but the method in the request isDELETE
. This function is not exported by default. - PATCH $url
- PATCH $url, Header => Value,...
- PATCH $url, $form_ref, Header => Value,...
- PATCH $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $form_ref
- PATCH $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
-
The same as
POST
below, but the method in the request isPATCH
. - PUT $url
- PUT $url, Header => Value,...
- PUT $url, $form_ref, Header => Value,...
- PUT $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $form_ref
- PUT $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
-
The same as
POST
below, but the method in the request isPUT
- OPTIONS $url
- OPTIONS $url, Header => Value,...
- OPTIONS $url, $form_ref, Header => Value,...
- OPTIONS $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $form_ref
- OPTIONS $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
-
The same as
POST
below, but the method in the request isOPTIONS
This was added in version 6.21, so you should require that in your code:
use HTTP::Request::Common 6.21;
- POST $url
- POST $url, Header => Value,...
- POST $url, $form_ref, Header => Value,...
- POST $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $form_ref
- POST $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
-
POST
,PATCH
andPUT
all work with the same parameters.�ta = ( title => 'something', body => something else' ); $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new(); $request = HTTP::Request::Common::POST( $url, [ �ta ] ); $response = $ua->request($request);
They take a second optional array or hash reference parameter
$form_ref
. The content can also be specified directly using theContent
pseudo-header, and you may also provide the$form_ref
this way.The
Content
pseudo-header steals a bit of the header field namespace as there is no way to directly specify a header that is actually called "Content". If you really need this you must update the request returned in a separate statement.The
$form_ref
argument can be used to pass key/value pairs for the form content. By default we will initialize a request using theapplication/x-www-form-urlencoded
content type. This means that you can emulate an HTML <form> POSTing like this:POST 'http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi', [ name => 'Gisle Aas', email => '[email protected]', gender => 'M', born => '1964', perc => '3%', ];
This will create an HTTP::Request object that looks like this:
POST http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi Content-Length: 66 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded name=Gisle Aas&[email protected]&gender=M&born=1964&perc=3%
Multivalued form fields can be specified by either repeating the field name or by passing the value as an array reference.
The POST method also supports the
multipart/form-data
content used for Form-based File Upload as specified in RFC 1867. You trigger this content format by specifying a content type of'form-data'
as one of the request headers. If one of the values in the$form_ref
is an array reference, then it is treated as a file part specification with the following interpretation:[ $file, $filename, Header => Value... ] [ undef, $filename, Header => Value,..., Content => $content ]
The first value in the array ($file) is the name of a file to open. This file will be read and its content placed in the request. The routine will croak if the file can't be opened. Use an
undef
as $file value if you want to specify the content directly with aContent
header. The $filename is the filename to report in the request. If this value is undefined, then the basename of the $file will be used. You can specify an empty string as $filename if you want to suppress sending the filename when you provide a $file value.If a $file is provided by no
Content-Type
header, thenContent-Type
andContent-Encoding
will be filled in automatically with the values returned byLWP::MediaTypes::guess_media_type()
Sending my ~/.profile to the survey used as example above can be achieved by this:
POST 'http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi', Content_Type => 'form-data', Content => [ name => 'Gisle Aas', email => '[email protected]', gender => 'M', born => '1964', init => ["$ENV{HOME}/.profile"], ]
This will create an HTTP::Request object that almost looks this (the boundary and the content of your ~/.profile is likely to be different):
POST http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi Content-Length: 388 Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary="6G f" --6G f Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name" Gisle Aas --6G f Content-Disposition: form-data; name="email" [email protected] --6G f Content-Disposition: form-data; name="gender" M --6G f Content-Disposition: form-data; name="born" 1964 --6G f Content-Disposition: form-data; name="init"; filename=".profile" Content-Type: text/plain PATH=/local/perl/bin:$PATH export PATH --6G f--
If you set the
$DYNAMIC_FILE_UPLOAD
variable (exportable) to some TRUE value, then you get back a request object with a subroutine closure as the content attribute. This subroutine will read the content of any files on demand and return it in suitable chunks. This allow you to upload arbitrary big files without using lots of memory. You can even upload infinite files like /dev/audio if you wish; however, if the file is not a plain file, there will be noContent-Length
header defined for the request. Not all servers (or server applications) like this. Also, if the file(s) change in size between the time theContent-Length
is calculated and the time that the last chunk is delivered, the subroutine willCroak
.The
post(...)
method of LWP::UserAgent exists as a shortcut for$ua->request(POST ...)
.
SEE ALSO
Also, there are some examples in "EXAMPLES" in HTTP::Request that you might find useful. For example, batch requests are explained there.
AUTHOR
Gisle Aas <[email protected]>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 1994 by Gisle Aas.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.