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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VERSION

9       version 6.44
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SYNOPSIS

12        use parent 'HTTP::Message';
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DESCRIPTION

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

305       Gisle Aas <gisle@activestate.com>
306
308       This software is copyright (c) 1994 by Gisle Aas.
309
310       This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
311       the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
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315perl v5.36.0                      2023-01-20                  HTTP::Message(3)
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