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



NAME
       HTTP::Response - HTTP style response message

SYNOPSIS
       Response objects are returned by the request() method of the "LWP::UserAgent":

           # ...
           $response = $ua->request($request)
           if ($response->is_success) {
               print $response->content;
           }
           else {
               print STDERR $response->status_line, "\n";
           }

DESCRIPTION
       The "HTTP::Response" class encapsulates HTTP style responses.  A response consists of a response
       line, some headers, and a content body. Note that the LWP library uses HTTP style responses even for
       non-HTTP protocol schemes.  Instances of this class are usually created and returned by the request()
       method of an "LWP::UserAgent" object.

       "HTTP::Response" is a subclass of "HTTP::Message" and therefore inherits its methods.  The following
       additional methods are available:

       $r = HTTP::Response->new( $code )
       $r = HTTP::Response->new( $code, $msg )
       $r = HTTP::Response->new( $code, $msg, $header )
       $r = HTTP::Response->new( $code, $msg, $header, $content )
           Constructs a new "HTTP::Response" object describing a response with response code $code and
           optional message $msg.  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.  The meaning these arguments are described below.

       $r = HTTP::Response->parse( $str )
           This constructs a new response object by parsing the given string.

       $r->code
       $r->code( $code )
           This is used to get/set the code attribute.  The code is a 3 digit number that encode the overall
           outcome of a HTTP response.  The "HTTP::Status" module provide constants that provide mnemonic
           names for the code attribute.

       $r->message
       $r->message( $message )
           This is used to get/set the message attribute.  The message is a short human readable single line
           string that explains the response code.

       $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->content
       $r->content( $bytes )
           This is used to get/set the raw 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.

       $r->decoded_content( %options )
           This will return the content after any "Content-Encoding" and charsets have been decoded.  See
           HTTP::Message for details.

       $r->request
       $r->request( $request )
           This is used to get/set the request attribute.  The request attribute is a reference to the the
           request that caused this response.  It does not have to be the same request passed to the
           $ua->request() method, because there might have been redirects and authorization retries in
           between.

       $r->previous
       $r->previous( $response )
           This is used to get/set the previous attribute.  The previous attribute is used to link together
           chains of responses.  You get chains of responses if the first response is redirect or
           unauthorized.  The value is "undef" if this is the first response in a chain.

       $r->status_line
           Returns the string "<code> <message>".  If the message attribute is not set then the official
           name of <code> (see HTTP::Status) is substituted.

       $r->base
           Returns the base URI for this response.  The return value will be a reference to a URI object.

           The base URI is obtained from one the following sources (in priority order):

           1.  Embedded in the document content, for instance <BASE HREF="..."> in HTML documents.

           2.  A "Content-Base:" or a "Content-Location:" header in the response.

               For backwards compatibility with older HTTP implementations we will also look for the "Base:"
               header.

           3.  The URI used to request this response. This might not be the original URI that was passed to
               $ua->request() method, because we might have received some redirect responses first.

           If none of these sources provide an absolute URI, undef is returned.

           When the LWP protocol modules produce the HTTP::Response object, then any base URI embedded in
           the document (step 1) will already have initialized the "Content-Base:" header. This means that
           this method only performs the last 2 steps (the content is not always available either).

       $r->filename
           Returns a filename for this response.  Note that doing sanity checks on the returned filename
           (eg. removing characters that cannot be used on the target filesystem where the filename would be
           used, and laundering it for security purposes) are the caller's responsibility; the only related
           thing done by this method is that it makes a simple attempt to return a plain filename with no
           preceding path segments.

           The filename is obtained from one the following sources (in priority order):

           1.  A "Content-Disposition:" header in the response.  Proper decoding of RFC 2047 encoded
               filenames requires the "MIME::QuotedPrint" (for "Q" encoding), "MIME::Base64" (for "B"
               encoding), and "Encode" modules.

           2.  A "Content-Location:" header in the response.

           3.  The URI used to request this response. This might not be the original URI that was passed to
               $ua->request() method, because we might have received some redirect responses first.

           If a filename cannot be derived from any of these sources, undef is returned.

       $r->as_string
       $r->as_string( $eol )
           Returns a textual representation of the response.

       $r->is_info
       $r->is_success
       $r->is_redirect
       $r->is_error
           These methods indicate if the response was informational, successful, a redirection, or an error.
           See HTTP::Status for the meaning of these.

       $r->error_as_HTML
           Returns a string containing a complete HTML document indicating what error occurred.  This method
           should only be called when $r->is_error is TRUE.

       $r->current_age
           Calculates the "current age" of the response as specified by RFC 2616 section 13.2.3.  The age of
           a response is the time since it was sent by the origin server.  The returned value is a number
           representing the age in seconds.

       $r->freshness_lifetime
           Calculates the "freshness lifetime" of the response as specified by RFC 2616 section 13.2.4.  The
           "freshness lifetime" is the length of time between the generation of a response and its
           expiration time.  The returned value is a number representing the freshness lifetime in seconds.

           If the response does not contain an "Expires" or a "Cache-Control" header, then this function
           will apply some simple heuristic based on 'Last-Modified' to determine a suitable lifetime.

       $r->is_fresh
           Returns TRUE if the response is fresh, based on the values of freshness_lifetime() and
           current_age().  If the response is no longer fresh, then it has to be refetched or revalidated by
           the origin server.

       $r->fresh_until
           Returns the time when this entity is no longer fresh.

SEE ALSO
       HTTP::Headers, HTTP::Message, HTTP::Status, HTTP::Request

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                                     2008-06-17                                HTTP::Response(3)