lib::HTTP::RequUser:Contributed Perllib::HTTP::Request::Common(3)
NAME
HTTP::Request::Common - Construct common HTTP::Request
objects
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]);
DESCRIPTION
This module provide functions that return newly created
HTTP::Request objects. These functions are usually more
convenient to use than the standard HTTP::Request
constructor for these common requests. The following
functions are provided.
GET $url, Header => Value,...
The GET() function returns a HTTP::Request object
initialized with the GET method and the specified URL.
Without additional arguments it is exactly equivalent
to the following call
HTTP::Request->new(GET => $url)
but is less cluttered. It also reads better when used
together with the LWP::UserAgent->request() method:
my $ua = new LWP::UserAgent;
my $res = $ua->request(GET 'http://www.sn.no')
if ($res->is_success) { ...
You can also initialize header values in the request
by specifying some key/value pairs as optional
arguments. For instance:
$ua->request(GET 'http://www.sn.no',
If_Match => 'foo',
From => 'gisle@aas.no',
);
A header key called 'Content' is special and when seen
the value will initialize the content part of the
request instead of setting a header.
HEAD $url, [Header => Value,...]
Like GET() but the method in the request is HEAD.
PUT $url, [Header => Value,...]
Like GET() but the method in the request is PUT.
POST $url, [$form_ref], [Header => Value,...]
This works mostly like GET() with POST as the method,
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but this function also takes a second optional array
or hash reference parameter ($form_ref). This
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 a 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 a 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
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, $filename, Header => Value... ]
The first value in the array ($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. 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 $filename if you don't want any filename in the
request.
Sending my ~/.profile to the survey used as example
above can be achieved by this:
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POST 'http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi',
Content_Type => 'form-data',
Content => [ name => 'Gisle Aas',
email => 'gisle@aas.no',
gender => 'M',
born => '1964',
init => ["$ENV{HOME}/.profile"],
]
This will create a 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
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the Content-Length is calculated and the time that the
last chunk is delivered, the subroutine will Croak.
SEE ALSO
the HTTP::Request manpage, the LWP::UserAgent manpage
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1997-2000, Gisle Aas
This library is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
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