1HTTP::Request::Common(3U)ser Contributed Perl DocumentatiHoTnTP::Request::Common(3)
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NAME

6       HTTP::Request::Common - Construct common HTTP::Request objects
7

SYNOPSIS

9         use HTTP::Request::Common;
10         $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
11         $ua->request(GET 'http://www.sn.no/');
12         $ua->request(POST 'http://somewhere/foo', [foo => bar, bar => foo]);
13

DESCRIPTION

15       This module provide functions that return newly created "HTTP::Request"
16       objects.  These functions are usually more convenient to use than the
17       standard "HTTP::Request" constructor for the most common requests.  The
18       following functions are provided:
19
20       GET $url
21       GET $url, Header => Value,...
22           The GET() function returns an "HTTP::Request" object initialized
23           with the "GET" method and the specified URL.  It is roughly
24           equivalent to the following call
25
26             HTTP::Request->new(
27                GET => $url,
28                HTTP::Headers->new(Header => Value,...),
29             )
30
31           but is less cluttered.  What is different is that a header named
32           "Content" will initialize the content part of the request instead
33           of setting a header field.  Note that GET requests should normally
34           not have a content, so this hack makes more sense for the PUT() and
35           POST() functions described below.
36
37           The get(...) method of "LWP::UserAgent" exists as a shortcut for
38           $ua->request(GET ...).
39
40       HEAD $url
41       HEAD $url, Header => Value,...
42           Like GET() but the method in the request is "HEAD".
43
44           The head(...)  method of "LWP::UserAgent" exists as a shortcut for
45           $ua->request(HEAD ...).
46
47       PUT $url
48       PUT $url, Header => Value,...
49       PUT $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
50           Like GET() but the method in the request is "PUT".
51
52           The content of the request can be specified using the "Content"
53           pseudo-header.  This steals a bit of the header field namespace as
54           there is no way to directly specify a header that is actually
55           called "Content".  If you really need this you must update the
56           request returned in a separate statement.
57
58       DELETE $url
59       DELETE $url, Header => Value,...
60           Like GET() but the method in the request is "DELETE".  This
61           function is not exported by default.
62
63       POST $url
64       POST $url, Header => Value,...
65       POST $url, $form_ref, Header => Value,...
66       POST $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $form_ref
67       POST $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
68           This works mostly like PUT() with "POST" as the method, but this
69           function also takes a second optional array or hash reference
70           parameter $form_ref.  As for PUT() the content can also be
71           specified directly using the "Content" pseudo-header, and you may
72           also provide the $form_ref this way.
73
74           The $form_ref argument can be used to pass key/value pairs for the
75           form content.  By default we will initialize a request using the
76           "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" content type.  This means that
77           you can emulate a HTML <form> POSTing like this:
78
79             POST 'http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi',
80                  [ name   => 'Gisle Aas',
81                    email  => 'gisle@aas.no',
82                    gender => 'M',
83                    born   => '1964',
84                    perc   => '3%',
85                  ];
86
87           This will create a HTTP::Request object that looks like this:
88
89             POST http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi
90             Content-Length: 66
91             Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
92
93             name=Gisle%20Aas&email=gisle%40aas.no&gender=M&born=1964&perc=3%25
94
95           Multivalued form fields can be specified by either repeating the
96           field name or by passing the value as an array reference.
97
98           The POST method also supports the "multipart/form-data" content
99           used for Form-based File Upload as specified in RFC 1867.  You
100           trigger this content format by specifying a content type of
101           'form-data' as one of the request headers.  If one of the values in
102           the $form_ref is an array reference, then it is treated as a file
103           part specification with the following interpretation:
104
105             [ $file, $filename, Header => Value... ]
106             [ undef, $filename, Header => Value,..., Content => $content ]
107
108           The first value in the array ($file) is the name of a file to open.
109           This file will be read and its content placed in the request.  The
110           routine will croak if the file can't be opened.  Use an "undef" as
111           $file value if you want to specify the content directly with a
112           "Content" header.  The $filename is the filename to report in the
113           request.  If this value is undefined, then the basename of the
114           $file will be used.  You can specify an empty string as $filename
115           if you want to suppress sending the filename when you provide a
116           $file value.
117
118           If a $file is provided by no "Content-Type" header, then
119           "Content-Type" and "Content-Encoding" will be filled in
120           automatically with the values returned by
121           LWP::MediaTypes::guess_media_type()
122
123           Sending my ~/.profile to the survey used as example above can be
124           achieved by this:
125
126             POST 'http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi',
127                  Content_Type => 'form-data',
128                  Content      => [ name  => 'Gisle Aas',
129                                    email => 'gisle@aas.no',
130                                    gender => 'M',
131                                    born   => '1964',
132                                    init   => ["$ENV{HOME}/.profile"],
133                                  ]
134
135           This will create a HTTP::Request object that almost looks this (the
136           boundary and the content of your ~/.profile is likely to be
137           different):
138
139             POST http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi
140             Content-Length: 388
141             Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary="6G+f"
142
143             --6G+f
144             Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"
145
146             Gisle Aas
147             --6G+f
148             Content-Disposition: form-data; name="email"
149
150             gisle@aas.no
151             --6G+f
152             Content-Disposition: form-data; name="gender"
153
154             M
155             --6G+f
156             Content-Disposition: form-data; name="born"
157
158             1964
159             --6G+f
160             Content-Disposition: form-data; name="init"; filename=".profile"
161             Content-Type: text/plain
162
163             PATH=/local/perl/bin:$PATH
164             export PATH
165
166             --6G+f--
167
168           If you set the $DYNAMIC_FILE_UPLOAD variable (exportable) to some
169           TRUE value, then you get back a request object with a subroutine
170           closure as the content attribute.  This subroutine will read the
171           content of any files on demand and return it in suitable chunks.
172           This allow you to upload arbitrary big files without using lots of
173           memory.  You can even upload infinite files like /dev/audio if you
174           wish; however, if the file is not a plain file, there will be no
175           Content-Length header defined for the request.  Not all servers (or
176           server applications) like this.  Also, if the file(s) change in
177           size between the time the Content-Length is calculated and the time
178           that the last chunk is delivered, the subroutine will "Croak".
179
180           The post(...)  method of "LWP::UserAgent" exists as a shortcut for
181           $ua->request(POST ...).
182

SEE ALSO

184       HTTP::Request, LWP::UserAgent
185
187       Copyright 1997-2004, Gisle Aas
188
189       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
190       under the same terms as Perl itself.
191
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193
194perl v5.10.1                      2009-06-15          HTTP::Request::Common(3)
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