HTTP::Request(3)					User Contributed Perl Documentation					  HTTP::Request(3)

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.

perl v5.12.1							    2009-06-15							  HTTP::Request(3)