[MAN] HTTP::Request

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HTTP::Request

Section: User Contributed Perl Documentation (3pm)
Updated: 2018-01-06
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NAME

HTTP::Request - HTTP style request message  

VERSION

version 6.14  

SYNOPSIS

 require HTTP::Request;
 $request = HTTP::Request->new(GET => 'http://www.example.com/');

and usually used like this:

 $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
 $response = $ua->request($request);

 

DESCRIPTION

"HTTP::Request" is a class encapsulating HTTP style requests, consisting of a request line, some headers, and a content body. Note that the LWP library uses HTTP style requests even for non-HTTP protocols. Instances of this class are usually passed to the request() method of an "LWP::UserAgent" object.

"HTTP::Request" is a subclass of "HTTP::Message" and therefore inherits its methods. The following additional methods are available:

$r = HTTP::Request->new( $method, $uri )

$r = HTTP::Request->new( $method, $uri, $header )

$r = HTTP::Request->new( $method, $uri, $header, $content )

Constructs a new "HTTP::Request" object describing a request on the object $uri using method $method. The $method argument must be a string. The $uri argument can be either a string, or a reference to a "URI" object. The optional $header argument should be a reference to an "HTTP::Headers" object or a plain array reference of key/value pairs. The optional $content argument should be a string of bytes.

$r = HTTP::Request->parse( $str )

This constructs a new request object by parsing the given string.

$r->method

$r->method( $val )

This is used to get/set the method attribute. The method should be a short string like ``GET'', ``HEAD'', ``PUT'', ``PATCH'' or ``POST''.

$r->uri

$r->uri( $val )

This is used to get/set the uri attribute. The $val can be a reference to a URI object or a plain string. If a string is given, then it should be parsable as an absolute URI.

$r->header( $field )

$r->header( $field => $value )

This is used to get/set header values and it is inherited from "HTTP::Headers" via "HTTP::Message". See HTTP::Headers for details and other similar methods that can be used to access the headers.

$r->accept_decodable

This will set the "Accept-Encoding" header to the list of encodings that decoded_content() can decode.

$r->content

$r->content( $bytes )

This is used to get/set the content and it is inherited from the "HTTP::Message" base class. See HTTP::Message for details and other methods that can be used to access the content.

Note that the content should be a string of bytes. Strings in perl can contain characters outside the range of a byte. The "Encode" module can be used to turn such strings into a string of bytes.

$r->as_string

$r->as_string( $eol )

Method returning a textual representation of the request.

 

EXAMPLES

Creating requests to be sent with LWP::UserAgent or others can be easy. Here are a few examples.  

Simple POST

Here, we'll create a simple POST request that could be used to send JSON data to an endpoint.

    #!/usr/bin/env perl

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use Encode qw(encode_utf8);
    use HTTP::Request ();
    use JSON::MaybeXS qw(encode_json);

    my $url = 'https://www.example.com/api/user/123';
    my $header = ['Content-Type' => 'application/json; charset=UTF-8'];
    my $data = {foo => 'bar', baz => 'quux'};
    my $encoded_data = encode_utf8(encode_json($data));

    my $r = HTTP::Request->new('POST', $url, $header, $encoded_data);
    # at this point, we could send it via LWP::UserAgent
    # my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
    # my $res = $ua->request($r);

 

Batch POST Request

Some services, like Google, allow multiple requests to be sent in one batch. <https://developers.google.com/drive/v3/web/batch> for example. Using the "add_part" method from HTTP::Message makes this simple.

    #!/usr/bin/env perl

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use Encode qw(encode_utf8);
    use HTTP::Request ();
    use JSON::MaybeXS qw(encode_json);

    my $auth_token = 'auth_token';
    my $batch_url = 'https://www.googleapis.com/batch';
    my $url = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/fileId/permissions?fields=id';
    my $url_no_email = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/fileId/permissions?fields=id&sendNotificationEmail=false';

    # generate a JSON post request for one of the batch entries
    my $req1 = build_json_request($url, {
        emailAddress => 'example@appsrocks.com',
        role => "writer",
        type => "user",
    });

    # generate a JSON post request for one of the batch entries
    my $req2 = build_json_request($url_no_email, {
        domain => "appsrocks.com",
        role => "reader",
        type => "domain",
    });

    # generate a multipart request to send all of the other requests
    my $r = HTTP::Request->new('POST', $batch_url, [
        'Accept-Encoding' => 'gzip',
        # if we don't provide a boundary here, HTTP::Message will generate
        # one for us. We could use UUID::uuid() here if we wanted.
        'Content-Type' => 'multipart/mixed; boundary=END_OF_PART'
    ]);

    # add the two POST requests to the main request
    $r->add_part($req1, $req2);
    # at this point, we could send it via LWP::UserAgent
    # my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
    # my $res = $ua->request($r);
    exit();

    sub build_json_request {
        my ($url, $href) = @_;
        my $header = ['Authorization' => "Bearer $auth_token", 'Content-Type' => 'application/json; charset=UTF-8'];
        return HTTP::Request->new('POST', $url, $header, encode_utf8(encode_json($href)));
    }

 

SEE ALSO

HTTP::Headers, HTTP::Message, HTTP::Request::Common, HTTP::Response  

AUTHOR

Gisle Aas <gisle@activestate.com>  

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 1994-2017 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.

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Index

NAME

VERSION

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

EXAMPLES

Simple POST

Batch POST Request

SEE ALSO

AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

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Time: 04:45:49 GMT, September 16, 2022