# NAME

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

# VERSION

version 6.14

# 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.

   If the `undef` argument is given, the content is reset to its default value,
   which is an empty string.

   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->content\_charset

   This returns the charset used by the content in the message.  The
   charset is either found as the charset attribute of the
   `Content-Type` header or by guessing.

   See [http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/charset.html#spec-char-encoding](http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/charset.html#spec-char-encoding)
   for details about how charset is determined.

- $mess->decoded\_content( %options )

   Returns the content with any `Content-Encoding` undone and for textual content
   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 guessed by content\_charset() or
       if that fails "ISO-8859-1".

   - `alt_charset`

       If decoding fails because the charset specified in the Content-Type header
       isn't recognized by Perl's Encode module, then try decoding using this charset
       instead of failing.  The `alt_charset` might be specified as `none` to simply
       return the string without any decoding of charset as alternative.

   - `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->decodable
- HTTP::Message::decodable()

   This returns the encoding identifiers that decoded\_content() can
   process.  In scalar context returns a comma separated string of
   identifiers.

   This value is suitable for initializing the `Accept-Encoding` request
   header field.

- $mess->decode

   This method tries to replace the content of the message with the
   decoded version and removes the `Content-Encoding` header.  Returns
   TRUE if successful and FALSE if not.

   If the message does not have a `Content-Encoding` header this method
   does nothing and returns TRUE.

   Note that the content of the message is still bytes after this method
   has been called and you still need to call decoded\_content() if you
   want to process its content as a string.

- $mess->encode( $encoding, ... )

   Apply the given encodings to the content of the message.  Returns TRUE
   if successful. The "identity" (non-)encoding is always supported; other
   currently supported encodings, subject to availability of required
   additional modules, are "gzip", "deflate", "x-bzip2" and "base64".

   A successful call to this function will set the `Content-Encoding`
   header.

   Note that `multipart/*` or `message/*` messages can't be encoded and
   this method will croak if you try.

- $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
   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 a @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.

- $mess->dump( %opt )

   Returns the message formatted as a string.  In void context print the string.

   This differs from `$mess->as_string` in that it escapes the bytes
   of the content so that it's safe to print them and it limits how much
   content to print.  The escapes syntax used is the same as for Perl's
   double quoted strings.  If there is no content the string "(no
   content)" is shown in its place.

   Options to influence the output can be passed as key/value pairs. The
   following options are recognized:

   - maxlength => $num

       How much of the content to show.  The default is 512.  Set this to 0
       for unlimited.

       If the content is longer then the string is chopped at the limit and
       the string "...\\n(### more bytes not shown)" appended.

   - no\_content => $str

       Replaces the "(no content)" marker.

   - prefix => $str

       A string that will be prefixed to each line of the dump.

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](https://metacpan.org/pod/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

# AUTHOR

Gisle Aas <[email protected]>

# COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 1994-2017 by Gisle Aas.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

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