HTTP::Request::Common - Construct common HTTP::Request objects |
HTTP::Request::Common - Construct common HTTP::Request objects
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]);
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()
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:
$ua->request(GET 'http://www.sn.no', If_Match => 'foo', From => 'gisle@aas.no', );
A header key called 'Content' is special and when seen the value will initialize the content part of the request instead of setting a header.
GET()
but the method in the request is HEAD.
GET()
but the method in the request is PUT.
GET()
with POST as the method, but this function
also takes a second optional array or hash reference parameter
($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 $filename if you don't want any filename in the request.
Sending my ~/.profile to the survey used as example above can be achieved by this:
POST 'http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi', Content_Type => 'form-data', Content => [ name => 'Gisle Aas', email => 'gisle@aas.no', gender => 'M', born => '1964', init => ["$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 HTTP::Request manpage, the LWP::UserAgent manpage
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.
HTTP::Request::Common - Construct common HTTP::Request objects |