HTTP::Request

Section: User Contributed Perl Documentation (3)
Updated: 2021-03-08
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NAME

HTTP::Request - HTTP style request message

VERSION

version 6.29

SYNOPSIS

 require HTTP::Request;
 $request = HTTP::Request->new(GET => 'http://www.example.com/');

and usually used like this:

 $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
 $response = $ua->request($request);

DESCRIPTION

"HTTP::Request" is a class encapsulating HTTP style requests, consisting of a request line, some headers, and a content body. Note that the LWP library uses HTTP style requests even for non-HTTP protocols. Instances of this class are usually passed to the request() method of an "LWP::UserAgent" object.

"HTTP::Request" is a subclass of "HTTP::Message" and therefore inherits its methods. The following additional methods are available:

$r = HTTP::Request->new( $method, $uri )
$r = HTTP::Request->new( $method, $uri, $header )
$r = HTTP::Request->new( $method, $uri, $header, $content ): Constructs a new "HTTP::Request" object describing a request on the object $uri using method $method. The $method argument must be a string. The $uri argument can be either a string, or a reference to a "URI" object. The optional $header argument should be a reference to an "HTTP::Headers" object or a plain array reference of key/value pairs. The optional $content argument should be a string of bytes.
$r = HTTP::Request->parse( $str ): This constructs a new request object by parsing the given string.
$r->method
$r->method( $val ): This is used to get/set the method attribute. The method should be a short string like ``GET'', ``HEAD'', ``PUT'', ``PATCH'' or ``POST''.
$r->uri
$r->uri( $val ): This is used to get/set the uri attribute. The $val can be a reference to a URI object or a plain string. If a string is given, then it should be parsable as an absolute URI.
$r->header( $field )
$r->header( $field => $value ): This is used to get/set header values and it is inherited from "HTTP::Headers" via "HTTP::Message". See HTTP::Headers for details and other similar methods that can be used to access the headers.
$r->accept_decodable: This will set the "Accept-Encoding" header to the list of encodings that decoded_content() can decode.
$r->content
$r->content( $bytes ): This is used to get/set the content and it is inherited from the "HTTP::Message" base class. See HTTP::Message for details and other methods that can be used to access the content.
Note that the content should be a string of bytes. Strings in perl can contain characters outside the range of a byte. The "Encode" module can be used to turn such strings into a string of bytes.
$r->as_string
$r->as_string( $eol ): Method returning a textual representation of the request.

EXAMPLES

Creating requests to be sent with LWP::UserAgent or others can be easy. Here are a few examples.

Simple POST

Here, we'll create a simple POST request that could be used to send JSON data to an endpoint.

    #!/usr/bin/env perl

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use HTTP::Request ();
    use JSON::MaybeXS qw(encode_json);

    my $url = 'https://www.example.com/api/user/123';
    my $header = ['Content-Type' => 'application/json; charset=UTF-8'];
    my $data = {foo => 'bar', baz => 'quux'};
    my $encoded_data = encode_json($data);

    my $r = HTTP::Request->new('POST', $url, $header, $encoded_data);
    # at this point, we could send it via LWP::UserAgent
    # my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
    # my $res = $ua->request($r);

Batch POST Request

Some services, like Google, allow multiple requests to be sent in one batch. <https://developers.google.com/drive/v3/web/batch> for example. Using the "add_part" method from HTTP::Message makes this simple.

    #!/usr/bin/env perl

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use HTTP::Request ();
    use JSON::MaybeXS qw(encode_json);

    my $auth_token = 'auth_token';
    my $batch_url = 'https://www.googleapis.com/batch';
    my $url = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/fileId/permissions?fields=id';
    my $url_no_email = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/fileId/permissions?fields=id&sendNotificationEmail=false';

    # generate a JSON post request for one of the batch entries
    my $req1 = build_json_request($url, {
        emailAddress => 'example@appsrocks.com',
        role => "writer",
        type => "user",
    });

    # generate a JSON post request for one of the batch entries
    my $req2 = build_json_request($url_no_email, {
        domain => "appsrocks.com",
        role => "reader",
        type => "domain",
    });

    # generate a multipart request to send all of the other requests
    my $r = HTTP::Request->new('POST', $batch_url, [
        'Accept-Encoding' => 'gzip',
        # if we don't provide a boundary here, HTTP::Message will generate
        # one for us. We could use UUID::uuid() here if we wanted.
        'Content-Type' => 'multipart/mixed; boundary=END_OF_PART'
    ]);

    # add the two POST requests to the main request
    $r->add_part($req1, $req2);
    # at this point, we could send it via LWP::UserAgent
    # my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
    # my $res = $ua->request($r);
    exit();

    sub build_json_request {
        my ($url, $href) = @_;
        my $header = ['Authorization' => "Bearer $auth_token", 'Content-Type' => 'application/json; charset=UTF-8'];
        return HTTP::Request->new('POST', $url, $header, encode_json($href));
    }

AUTHOR

Gisle Aas <gisle@activestate.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.