NAME

       HTTP::Request - HTTP style request message

VERSION

       version 6.44

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));
           }

SEE ALSO

       HTTP::Headers, HTTP::Message, HTTP::Request::Common, HTTP::Response

AUTHOR

       Gisle Aas <gisle@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.