NAME

       HTTP::Request - HTTP style request message

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" 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 parseable 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.

SEE ALSO

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

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright 1995-2004 Gisle Aas.

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