1HTTP::Message(3)      User Contributed Perl Documentation     HTTP::Message(3)
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NAME

6       HTTP::Message - HTTP style message (base class)
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SYNOPSIS

9        use base 'HTTP::Message';
10

DESCRIPTION

12       An "HTTP::Message" object contains some headers and a content body.
13       The following methods are available:
14
15       $mess = HTTP::Message->new
16       $mess = HTTP::Message->new( $headers )
17       $mess = HTTP::Message->new( $headers, $content )
18           This constructs a new message object.  Normally you would want
19           construct "HTTP::Request" or "HTTP::Response" objects instead.
20
21           The optional $header argument should be a reference to an
22           "HTTP::Headers" object or a plain array reference of key/value
23           pairs.  If an "HTTP::Headers" object is provided then a copy of it
24           will be embedded into the constructed message, i.e. it will not be
25           owned and can be modified afterwards without affecting the message.
26
27           The optional $content argument should be a string of bytes.
28
29       $mess = HTTP::Message->parse( $str )
30           This constructs a new message object by parsing the given string.
31
32       $mess->headers
33           Returns the embedded "HTTP::Headers" object.
34
35       $mess->headers_as_string
36       $mess->headers_as_string( $eol )
37           Call the as_string() method for the headers in the message.  This
38           will be the same as
39
40               $mess->headers->as_string
41
42           but it will make your program a whole character shorter :-)
43
44       $mess->content
45       $mess->content( $bytes )
46           The content() method sets the raw content if an argument is given.
47           If no argument is given the content is not touched.  In either case
48           the original raw content is returned.
49
50           Note that the content should be a string of bytes.  Strings in perl
51           can contain characters outside the range of a byte.  The "Encode"
52           module can be used to turn such strings into a string of bytes.
53
54       $mess->add_content( $bytes )
55           The add_content() methods appends more data bytes to the end of the
56           current content buffer.
57
58       $mess->add_content_utf8( $string )
59           The add_content_utf8() method appends the UTF-8 bytes representing
60           the string to the end of the current content buffer.
61
62       $mess->content_ref
63       $mess->content_ref( \$bytes )
64           The content_ref() method will return a reference to content buffer
65           string.  It can be more efficient to access the content this way if
66           the content is huge, and it can even be used for direct
67           manipulation of the content, for instance:
68
69             ${$res->content_ref} =~ s/\bfoo\b/bar/g;
70
71           This example would modify the content buffer in-place.
72
73           If an argument is passed it will setup the content to reference
74           some external source.  The content() and add_content() methods will
75           automatically dereference scalar references passed this way.  For
76           other references content() will return the reference itself and
77           add_content() will refuse to do anything.
78
79       $mess->content_charset
80           This returns the charset used by the content in the message.  The
81           charset is either found as the charset attribute of the
82           "Content-Type" header or by guessing.
83
84           See http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/charset.html#spec-char-encoding
85           <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/charset.html#spec-char-encoding>
86           for details about how charset is determined.
87
88       $mess->decoded_content( %options )
89           Returns the content with any "Content-Encoding" undone and the raw
90           content encoded to perl's Unicode strings.  If the
91           "Content-Encoding" or "charset" of the message is unknown this
92           method will fail by returning "undef".
93
94           The following options can be specified.
95
96           "charset"
97               This override the charset parameter for text content.  The
98               value "none" can used to suppress decoding of the charset.
99
100           "default_charset"
101               This override the default charset guessed by content_charset()
102               or if that fails "ISO-8859-1".
103
104           "alt_charset"
105               If decoding fails because the charset specified in the Content-
106               Type header isn't recognized by Perl's Encode module, then try
107               decoding using this charset instead of failing.  The
108               "alt_charset" might be specified as "none" to simply return the
109               string without any decoding of charset as alternative.
110
111           "charset_strict"
112               Abort decoding if malformed characters is found in the content.
113               By default you get the substitution character ("\x{FFFD}") in
114               place of malformed characters.
115
116           "raise_error"
117               If TRUE then raise an exception if not able to decode content.
118               Reason might be that the specified "Content-Encoding" or
119               "charset" is not supported.  If this option is FALSE, then
120               decoded_content() will return "undef" on errors, but will still
121               set $@.
122
123           "ref"
124               If TRUE then a reference to decoded content is returned.  This
125               might be more efficient in cases where the decoded content is
126               identical to the raw content as no data copying is required in
127               this case.
128
129       $mess->decodable
130       HTTP::Message::decodable()
131           This returns the encoding identifiers that decoded_content() can
132           process.  In scalar context returns a comma separated string of
133           identifiers.
134
135           This value is suitable for initializing the "Accept-Encoding"
136           request header field.
137
138       $mess->decode
139           This method tries to replace the content of the message with the
140           decoded version and removes the "Content-Encoding" header.  Returns
141           TRUE if successful and FALSE if not.
142
143           If the message does not have a "Content-Encoding" header this
144           method does nothing and returns TRUE.
145
146           Note that the content of the message is still bytes after this
147           method has been called and you still need to call decoded_content()
148           if you want to process its content as a string.
149
150       $mess->encode( $encoding, ... )
151           Apply the given encodings to the content of the message.  Returns
152           TRUE if successful. The "identity" (non-)encoding is always
153           supported; other currently supported encodings, subject to
154           availability of required additional modules, are "gzip", "deflate",
155           "x-bzip2" and "base64".
156
157           A successful call to this function will set the "Content-Encoding"
158           header.
159
160           Note that "multipart/*" or "message/*" messages can't be encoded
161           and this method will croak if you try.
162
163       $mess->parts
164       $mess->parts( @parts )
165       $mess->parts( \@parts )
166           Messages can be composite, i.e. contain other messages.  The
167           composite messages have a content type of "multipart/*" or
168           "message/*".  This method give access to the contained messages.
169
170           The argumentless form will return a list of "HTTP::Message"
171           objects.  If the content type of $msg is not "multipart/*" or
172           "message/*" then this will return the empty list.  In scalar
173           context only the first object is returned.  The returned message
174           parts should be regarded as read-only (future versions of this
175           library might make it possible to modify the parent by modifying
176           the parts).
177
178           If the content type of $msg is "message/*" then there will only be
179           one part returned.
180
181           If the content type is "message/http", then the return value will
182           be either an "HTTP::Request" or an "HTTP::Response" object.
183
184           If an @parts argument is given, then the content of the message
185           will be modified. The array reference form is provided so that an
186           empty list can be provided.  The @parts array should contain
187           "HTTP::Message" objects.  The @parts objects are owned by $mess
188           after this call and should not be modified or made part of other
189           messages.
190
191           When updating the message with this method and the old content type
192           of $mess is not "multipart/*" or "message/*", then the content type
193           is set to "multipart/mixed" and all other content headers are
194           cleared.
195
196           This method will croak if the content type is "message/*" and more
197           than one part is provided.
198
199       $mess->add_part( $part )
200           This will add a part to a message.  The $part argument should be
201           another "HTTP::Message" object.  If the previous content type of
202           $mess is not "multipart/*" then the old content (together with all
203           content headers) will be made part #1 and the content type made
204           "multipart/mixed" before the new part is added.  The $part object
205           is owned by $mess after this call and should not be modified or
206           made part of other messages.
207
208           There is no return value.
209
210       $mess->clear
211           Will clear the headers and set the content to the empty string.
212           There is no return value
213
214       $mess->protocol
215       $mess->protocol( $proto )
216           Sets the HTTP protocol used for the message.  The protocol() is a
217           string like "HTTP/1.0" or "HTTP/1.1".
218
219       $mess->clone
220           Returns a copy of the message object.
221
222       $mess->as_string
223       $mess->as_string( $eol )
224           Returns the message formatted as a single string.
225
226           The optional $eol parameter specifies the line ending sequence to
227           use.  The default is "\n".  If no $eol is given then as_string will
228           ensure that the returned string is newline terminated (even when
229           the message content is not).  No extra newline is appended if an
230           explicit $eol is passed.
231
232       $mess->dump( %opt )
233           Returns the message formatted as a string.  In void context print
234           the string.
235
236           This differs from "$mess->as_string" in that it escapes the bytes
237           of the content so that it's safe to print them and it limits how
238           much content to print.  The escapes syntax used is the same as for
239           Perl's double quoted strings.  If there is no content the string
240           "(no content)" is shown in its place.
241
242           Options to influence the output can be passed as key/value pairs.
243           The following options are recognized:
244
245           maxlength => $num
246               How much of the content to show.  The default is 512.  Set this
247               to 0 for unlimited.
248
249               If the content is longer then the string is chopped at the
250               limit and the string "...\n(### more bytes not shown)"
251               appended.
252
253           prefix => $str
254               A string that will be prefixed to each line of the dump.
255
256       All methods unknown to "HTTP::Message" itself are delegated to the
257       "HTTP::Headers" object that is part of every message.  This allows
258       convenient access to these methods.  Refer to HTTP::Headers for details
259       of these methods:
260
261           $mess->header( $field => $val )
262           $mess->push_header( $field => $val )
263           $mess->init_header( $field => $val )
264           $mess->remove_header( $field )
265           $mess->remove_content_headers
266           $mess->header_field_names
267           $mess->scan( \&doit )
268
269           $mess->date
270           $mess->expires
271           $mess->if_modified_since
272           $mess->if_unmodified_since
273           $mess->last_modified
274           $mess->content_type
275           $mess->content_encoding
276           $mess->content_length
277           $mess->content_language
278           $mess->title
279           $mess->user_agent
280           $mess->server
281           $mess->from
282           $mess->referer
283           $mess->www_authenticate
284           $mess->authorization
285           $mess->proxy_authorization
286           $mess->authorization_basic
287           $mess->proxy_authorization_basic
288
290       Copyright 1995-2004 Gisle Aas.
291
292       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
293       under the same terms as Perl itself.
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297perl v5.12.4                      2010-09-20                  HTTP::Message(3)
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