phpMan > perldoc > HTTP::Request::Common

NAME
    HTTP::Request::Common - Construct common HTTP::Request objects

VERSION
    version 6.36

SYNOPSIS
      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);
      $ua->request(PATCH 'http://somewhere/foo', foo => bar, bar => foo);
      $ua->request(PUT 'http://somewhere/foo', foo => bar, bar => foo);
      $ua->request(OPTIONS 'http://somewhere/foo', foo => bar, bar => foo);

DESCRIPTION
    This module provides functions that return newly created "HTTP::Request" objects. These
    functions are usually more convenient to use than the standard "HTTP::Request" constructor for
    the most common requests.

    Note that LWP::UserAgent has several convenience methods, including "get", "head", "delete",
    "post" and "put".

    The following functions are provided:

    GET $url
    GET $url, Header => Value,...
        The "GET" function returns an HTTP::Request object initialized with the "GET" method and the
        specified URL. It is roughly equivalent to the following call

          HTTP::Request->new(
             GET => $url,
             HTTP::Headers->new(Header => Value,...),
          )

        but is less cluttered. What is different is that a header named "Content" will initialize
        the content part of the request instead of setting a header field. Note that GET requests
        should normally not have a content, so this hack makes more sense for the "PUT", "PATCH" and
        "POST" functions described below.

        The "get(...)" method of LWP::UserAgent exists as a shortcut for "$ua->request(GET ...)".

    HEAD $url
    HEAD $url, Header => Value,...
        Like GET() but the method in the request is "HEAD".

        The "head(...)" method of LWP::UserAgent exists as a shortcut for "$ua->request(HEAD ...)".

    DELETE $url
    DELETE $url, Header => Value,...
        Like "GET" but the method in the request is "DELETE". This function is not exported by
        default.

    PATCH $url
    PATCH $url, Header => Value,...
    PATCH $url, $form_ref, Header => Value,...
    PATCH $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $form_ref
    PATCH $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
        The same as "POST" below, but the method in the request is "PATCH".

    PUT $url
    PUT $url, Header => Value,...
    PUT $url, $form_ref, Header => Value,...
    PUT $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $form_ref
    PUT $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
        The same as "POST" below, but the method in the request is "PUT"

    OPTIONS $url
    OPTIONS $url, Header => Value,...
    OPTIONS $url, $form_ref, Header => Value,...
    OPTIONS $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $form_ref
    OPTIONS $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
        The same as "POST" below, but the method in the request is "OPTIONS"

    POST $url
    POST $url, Header => Value,...
    POST $url, $form_ref, Header => Value,...
    POST $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $form_ref
    POST $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
        "POST", "PATCH" and "PUT" all work with the same parameters.

          %data = ( title => 'something', body => something else' );
          $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
          $request = HTTP::Request::Common::POST( $url, [ %data ] );
          $response = $ua->request($request);

        They take a second optional array or hash reference parameter $form_ref. The content can
        also be specified directly using the "Content" pseudo-header, and you may also provide the
        $form_ref this way.

        The "Content" pseudo-header steals a bit of the header field namespace as there is no way to
        directly specify a header that is actually called "Content". If you really need this you
        must update the request returned in a separate statement.

        The $form_ref 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 an HTML <form> POSTing like this:

          POST 'http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi',
               [ name   => 'Gisle Aas',
                 email  => 'gisle AT aas.no',
                 gender => 'M',
                 born   => '1964',
                 perc   => '3%',
               ];

        This will create an 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

        Multivalued form fields can be specified by either repeating the field name or by passing
        the value as an array reference.

        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... ]
          [ undef, $filename, Header => Value,..., Content => $content ]

        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 with a "Content"
        header. 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 want to suppress sending the filename when you provide a $file value.

        If a $file is provided by no "Content-Type" header, then "Content-Type" and
        "Content-Encoding" will be filled in automatically with the values returned by
        "LWP::MediaTypes::guess_media_type()"

        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 AT aas.no',
                                 gender => 'M',
                                 born   => '1964',
                                 init   => ["$ENV{HOME}/.profile"],
                               ]

        This will create an 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 AT 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 "post(...)" method of LWP::UserAgent exists as a shortcut for "$ua->request(POST ...)".

SEE ALSO
    HTTP::Request, LWP::UserAgent

    Also, there are some examples in "EXAMPLES" in HTTP::Request that you might find useful. For
    example, batch requests are explained there.

AUTHOR
    Gisle Aas <gisle AT activestate.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    This software is copyright (c) 1994 by Gisle Aas.

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