Manpages - HTTP_Request_Common.3pm
Table of Contents
NAME
:Request::Common - Construct common :Request objects
VERSION
version 6.33
SYNOPSIS
use :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 :Request object initialized with the
GET method and the specified URL. It is roughly equivalent to the
following call :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 the PUT, PATCH and POST 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 is DELETE. 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 is PATCH.
- 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 is PUT
- 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 is OPTIONS
- 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 and PUT all work with the same parameters. %data = (
title > something, body => something else ); $ua =
LWP::UserAgent->new(); $request = HTTP::Request::Common::POST( $url, [
%data ] ); $response = $ua->request($request); They take a second
optional array or hash reference parameter =$form_ref. The content can
also be specified directly using the Content 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 the
application/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 =>
gisle@aas.no, 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%20Aas&email=gisle%40aas.no&gender=M&born=1964&perc=3%25
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 a Content 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 $file is provided by no
Content-Type header, then Content-Type and Content-Encoding will
be filled in automatically with the values returned by
LWP::MediaTypes::guess_media_type() Sending my ~.profile/ to the
survey used as example above can be achieved by this: POST
http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi, Content_Type > form-data, Content => [
name => Gisle Aas, email => gisle@aas.no, gender => M, born => 1964,
init => ["$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” gisle@aas.no –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 no Content-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 the
Content-Length is calculated and the time that the last chunk is
delivered, the subroutine will Croak. The post(...) method of
LWP::UserAgent exists as a shortcut for $ua->request(POST ...).
SEE ALSO
AUTHOR
Gisle Aas <gisle@activestate.com>
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.