HTTP::Request::Common

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HTTP::Request::CommonUser Contributed Perl DocumentatHTTP::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 the most com-
       mon requests.  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 equiv-
	   alent to the following call

	     HTTP::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()
	   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 ...).

       PUT $url
       PUT $url, Header => Value,...
       PUT $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
	   Like GET() but the method in the request is "PUT".

	   The content of the request can be specified using the "Content"
	   pseudo-header.  This 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.

       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
	   This works mostly like PUT() with "POST" as the method, but this
	   function also takes a second optional array or hash reference
	   parameter $form_ref.	 As for PUT() the content can also be speci-
	   fied directly using the "Content" pseudo-header, and you may also
	   provide the $form_ref this way.

	   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 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

	   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 "Con-
	   tent-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 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 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
       HTTP::Request, LWP::UserAgent

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright 1997-2004, Gisle Aas

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
       it under the same terms as Perl itself.



perl v5.8.8			  2008-04-07	     HTTP::Request::Common(3)