HTTP::Request(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation HTTP::Request(3) 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. 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 perl v5.40.0 2024-09-01 HTTP::Request(3)