HTTP::Request(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation HTTP::Request(3)
NAME
HTTP::Request - HTTP style request message
VERSION
version 6.18
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 AT 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 AT 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.
perl v5.26.3 2018-06-05 HTTP::Request(3)