This manual page is for Mac OS X version 10.6

If you are running a different version of Mac OS X, view the documentation locally:

  • In Terminal, using the man(1) command

Reading manual pages

Manual pages are intended as a quick reference for people who already understand a technology.

  • For more information about the manual page format, see the manual page for manpages(5).

  • For more information about this technology, look for other documentation in the Apple Reference Library.

  • For general information about writing shell scripts, read Shell Scripting Primer.



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



NAME
       HTTP::Message - HTTP style message (base class)

SYNOPSIS
        use base 'HTTP::Message';

DESCRIPTION
       An "HTTP::Message" object contains some headers and a content body.  The following methods are
       available:

       $mess = HTTP::Message->new
       $mess = HTTP::Message->new( $headers )
       $mess = HTTP::Message->new( $headers, $content )
           This constructs a new message object.  Normally you would want construct "HTTP::Request" or
           "HTTP::Response" objects instead.

           The optional $header argument should be a reference to an "HTTP::Headers" object or a plain array
           reference of key/value pairs.  If an "HTTP::Headers" object is provided then a copy of it will be
           embedded into the constructed message, i.e. it will not be owned and can be modified afterwards
           without affecting the message.

           The optional $content argument should be a string of bytes.

       $mess = HTTP::Message->parse( $str )
           This constructs a new message object by parsing the given string.

       $mess->headers
           Returns the embedded "HTTP::Headers" object.

       $mess->headers_as_string
       $mess->headers_as_string( $eol )
           Call the as_string() method for the headers in the message.  This will be the same as

               $mess->headers->as_string

           but it will make your program a whole character shorter :-)

       $mess->content
       $mess->content( $bytes )
           The content() method sets the raw content if an argument is given.  If no argument is given the
           content is not touched.  In either case the original raw content is returned.

           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.

       $mess->add_content( $bytes )
           The add_content() methods appends more data bytes to the end of the current content buffer.

       $mess->add_content_utf8( $string )
           The add_content_utf8() method appends the UTF-8 bytes representing the string to the end of the
           current content buffer.

       $mess->content_ref
       $mess->content_ref( \$bytes )
           The content_ref() method will return a reference to content buffer string.  It can be more
           efficient to access the content this way if the content is huge, and it can even be used for
           direct manipulation of the content, for instance:

             ${$res->content_ref} =~ s/\bfoo\b/bar/g;

           This example would modify the content buffer in-place.

           If an argument is passed it will setup the content to reference some external source.  The
           content() and add_content() methods will automatically dereference scalar references passed this
           way.  For other references content() will return the reference itself and add_content() will
           refuse to do anything.

       $mess->decoded_content( %options )
           Returns the content with any "Content-Encoding" undone and the raw content encoded to perl's
           Unicode strings.  If the "Content-Encoding" or "charset" of the message is unknown this method
           will fail by returning "undef".

           The following options can be specified.

           "charset"
               This override the charset parameter for text content.  The value "none" can used to suppress
               decoding of the charset.

           "default_charset"
               This override the default charset of "ISO-8859-1".

           "charset_strict"
               Abort decoding if malformed characters is found in the content.  By default you get the
               substitution character ("\x{FFFD}") in place of malformed characters.

           "raise_error"
               If TRUE then raise an exception if not able to decode content.  Reason might be that the
               specified "Content-Encoding" or "charset" is not supported.  If this option is FALSE, then
               decoded_content() will return "undef" on errors, but will still set $@.

           "ref"
               If TRUE then a reference to decoded content is returned.  This might be more efficient in
               cases where the decoded content is identical to the raw content as no data copying is
               required in this case.

       $mess->parts
       $mess->parts( @parts )
       $mess->parts( \@parts )
           Messages can be composite, i.e. contain other messages.  The composite messages have a content
           type of "multipart/*" or "message/*".  This method give access to the contained messages.

           The argumentless form will return a list of "HTTP::Message" objects.  If the content type of $msg
           is not "multipart/*" or "message/*" then this will return the empty list.  In scalar context only
           the first object is returned.  The returned message parts should be regarded as are read only
           (future versions of this library might make it possible to modify the parent by modifying the
           parts).

           If the content type of $msg is "message/*" then there will only be one part returned.

           If the content type is "message/http", then the return value will be either an "HTTP::Request" or
           an "HTTP::Response" object.

           If an @parts argument is given, then the content of the message will be modified. The array
           reference form is provided so that an empty list can be provided.  The @parts array should
           contain "HTTP::Message" objects.  The @parts objects are owned by $mess after this call and
           should not be modified or made part of other messages.

           When updating the message with this method and the old content type of $mess is not "multipart/*"
           or "message/*", then the content type is set to "multipart/mixed" and all other content headers
           are cleared.

           This method will croak if the content type is "message/*" and more than one part is provided.

       $mess->add_part( $part )
           This will add a part to a message.  The $part argument should be another "HTTP::Message" object.
           If the previous content type of $mess is not "multipart/*" then the old content (together with
           all content headers) will be made part #1 and the content type made "multipart/mixed" before the
           new part is added.  The $part object is owned by $mess after this call and should not be modified
           or made part of other messages.

           There is no return value.

       $mess->clear
           Will clear the headers and set the content to the empty string.  There is no return value

       $mess->protocol
       $mess->protocol( $proto )
           Sets the HTTP protocol used for the message.  The protocol() is a string like "HTTP/1.0" or
           "HTTP/1.1".

       $mess->clone
           Returns a copy of the message object.

       $mess->as_string
       $mess->as_string( $eol )
           Returns the message formatted as a single string.

           The optional $eol parameter specifies the line ending sequence to use.  The default is "\n".  If
           no $eol is given then as_string will ensure that the returned string is newline terminated (even
           when the message content is not).  No extra newline is appended if an explicit $eol is passed.

       All methods unknown to "HTTP::Message" itself are delegated to the "HTTP::Headers" object that is
       part of every message.  This allows convenient access to these methods.  Refer to HTTP::Headers for
       details of these methods:

           $mess->header( $field => $val )
           $mess->push_header( $field => $val )
           $mess->init_header( $field => $val )
           $mess->remove_header( $field )
           $mess->remove_content_headers
           $mess->header_field_names
           $mess->scan( \&doit )

           $mess->date
           $mess->expires
           $mess->if_modified_since
           $mess->if_unmodified_since
           $mess->last_modified
           $mess->content_type
           $mess->content_encoding
           $mess->content_length
           $mess->content_language
           $mess->title
           $mess->user_agent
           $mess->server
           $mess->from
           $mess->referer
           $mess->www_authenticate
           $mess->authorization
           $mess->proxy_authorization
           $mess->authorization_basic
           $mess->proxy_authorization_basic

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 v5.10.0                                     2008-04-16                                 HTTP::Message(3)

Reporting Problems

The way to report a problem with this manual page depends on the type of problem:

Content errors
Report errors in the content of this documentation to the Perl project. (See perlbug(1) for submission instructions.)
Bug reports
Report bugs in the functionality of the described tool or API to Apple through Bug Reporter and to the Perl project using perlbug(1).
Formatting problems
Report formatting mistakes in the online version of these pages with the feedback links below.