NAME
HTTP::Tiny - A small, simple, correct HTTP/1.1 client
VERSION
version 0.034
SYNOPSIS
use HTTP::Tiny;
my $response = HTTP::Tiny->new->get('http://example.com/');
die "Failed!\n" unless $response->{success};
print "$response->{status} $response->{reason}\n";
while (my ($k, $v) = each %{$response->{headers}}) {
for (ref $v eq 'ARRAY' ? @$v : $v) {
print "$k: $_\n";
}
}
print $response->{content} if length $response->{content};
DESCRIPTION
This is a very simple HTTP/1.1 client, designed for doing simple GET
requests without the overhead of a large framework like LWP::UserAgent.
It is more correct and more complete than HTTP::Lite. It supports
proxies (currently only non-authenticating ones) and redirection. It
also correctly resumes after EINTR.
METHODS
new
$http = HTTP::Tiny->new( %attributes );
This constructor returns a new HTTP::Tiny object. Valid attributes
include:
* "agent"
A user-agent string (defaults to 'HTTP-Tiny/$VERSION'). If "agent"
ends in a space character, the default user-agent string is
appended.
* "cookie_jar"
An instance of HTTP::CookieJar or equivalent class that supports the
"add" and "cookie_header" methods
* "default_headers"
A hashref of default headers to apply to requests
* "local_address"
The local IP address to bind to
* "max_redirect"
Maximum number of redirects allowed (defaults to 5)
* "max_size"
Maximum response size (only when not using a data callback). If
defined, responses larger than this will return an exception.
* "proxy"
URL of a proxy server to use (default is $ENV{http_proxy} if set)
* "no_proxy"
List of domain suffixes that should not be proxied. Must be a
comma-separated string or an array reference. (default is
$ENV{no_proxy})
* "timeout"
Request timeout in seconds (default is 60)
* "verify_SSL"
A boolean that indicates whether to validate the SSL certificate of
an "https" connection (default is false)
* "SSL_options"
A hashref of "SSL_*" options to pass through to IO::Socket::SSL
Exceptions from "max_size", "timeout" or other errors will result in a
pseudo-HTTP status code of 599 and a reason of "Internal Exception". The
content field in the response will contain the text of the exception.
See "SSL SUPPORT" for more on the "verify_SSL" and "SSL_options"
attributes.
get|head|put|post|delete
$response = $http->get($url);
$response = $http->get($url, \%options);
$response = $http->head($url);
These methods are shorthand for calling "request()" for the given
method. The URL must have unsafe characters escaped and international
domain names encoded. See "request()" for valid options and a
description of the response.
The "success" field of the response will be true if the status code is
2XX.
post_form
$response = $http->post_form($url, $form_data);
$response = $http->post_form($url, $form_data, \%options);
This method executes a "POST" request and sends the key/value pairs from
a form data hash or array reference to the given URL with a
"content-type" of "application/x-www-form-urlencoded". See documentation
for the "www_form_urlencode" method for details on the encoding.
The URL must have unsafe characters escaped and international domain
names encoded. See "request()" for valid options and a description of
the response. Any "content-type" header or content in the options
hashref will be ignored.
The "success" field of the response will be true if the status code is
2XX.
mirror
$response = $http->mirror($url, $file, \%options)
if ( $response->{success} ) {
print "$file is up to date\n";
}
Executes a "GET" request for the URL and saves the response body to the
file name provided. The URL must have unsafe characters escaped and
international domain names encoded. If the file already exists, the
request will include an "If-Modified-Since" header with the modification
timestamp of the file. You may specify a different "If-Modified-Since"
header yourself in the "$options->{headers}" hash.
The "success" field of the response will be true if the status code is
2XX or if the status code is 304 (unmodified).
If the file was modified and the server response includes a properly
formatted "Last-Modified" header, the file modification time will be
updated accordingly.
request
$response = $http->request($method, $url);
$response = $http->request($method, $url, \%options);
Executes an HTTP request of the given method type ('GET', 'HEAD',
'POST', 'PUT', etc.) on the given URL. The URL must have unsafe
characters escaped and international domain names encoded.
If the URL includes a "user:password" stanza, they will be used for
Basic-style authorization headers. (Authorization headers will not be
included in a redirected request.) For example:
$http->request('GET', 'http://Aladdin:open sesame@example.com/');
A hashref of options may be appended to modify the request.
Valid options are:
* "headers"
A hashref containing headers to include with the request. If the
value for a header is an array reference, the header will be output
multiple times with each value in the array. These headers
over-write any default headers.
* "content"
A scalar to include as the body of the request OR a code reference
that will be called iteratively to produce the body of the request
* "trailer_callback"
A code reference that will be called if it exists to provide a
hashref of trailing headers (only used with chunked
transfer-encoding)
* "data_callback"
A code reference that will be called for each chunks of the response
body received.
If the "content" option is a code reference, it will be called
iteratively to provide the content body of the request. It should return
the empty string or undef when the iterator is exhausted.
If the "content" option is the empty string, no "content-type" or
"content-length" headers will be generated.
If the "data_callback" option is provided, it will be called iteratively
until the entire response body is received. The first argument will be a
string containing a chunk of the response body, the second argument will
be the in-progress response hash reference, as described below. (This
allows customizing the action of the callback based on the "status" or
"headers" received prior to the content body.)
The "request" method returns a hashref containing the response. The
hashref will have the following keys:
* "success"
Boolean indicating whether the operation returned a 2XX status code
* "url"
URL that provided the response. This is the URL of the request
unless there were redirections, in which case it is the last URL
queried in a redirection chain
* "status"
The HTTP status code of the response
* "reason"
The response phrase returned by the server
* "content"
The body of the response. If the response does not have any content
or if a data callback is provided to consume the response body, this
will be the empty string
* "headers"
A hashref of header fields. All header field names will be
normalized to be lower case. If a header is repeated, the value will
be an arrayref; it will otherwise be a scalar string containing the
value
On an exception during the execution of the request, the "status" field
will contain 599, and the "content" field will contain the text of the
exception.
www_form_urlencode
$params = $http->www_form_urlencode( $data );
$response = $http->get("http://example.com/query?$params");
This method converts the key/value pairs from a data hash or array
reference into a "x-www-form-urlencoded" string. The keys and values
from the data reference will be UTF-8 encoded and escaped per RFC 3986.
If a value is an array reference, the key will be repeated with each of
the values of the array reference. The key/value pairs in the resulting
string will be sorted by key and value.
SSL SUPPORT
Direct "https" connections are supported only if IO::Socket::SSL 1.56 or
greater and Net::SSLeay 1.49 or greater are installed. An exception will
be thrown if a new enough versions of these modules not installed or if
the SSL encryption fails. There is no support for "https" connections
via proxy (i.e. RFC 2817).
SSL provides two distinct capabilities:
* Encrypted communication channel
* Verification of server identity
By default, HTTP::Tiny does not verify server identity.
Server identity verification is controversial and potentially tricky
because it depends on a (usually paid) third-party Certificate Authority
(CA) trust model to validate a certificate as legitimate. This
discriminates against servers with self-signed certificates or
certificates signed by free, community-driven CA's such as CAcert.org
<http://cacert.org>.
By default, HTTP::Tiny does not make any assumptions about your trust
model, threat level or risk tolerance. It just aims to give you an
encrypted channel when you need one.
Setting the "verify_SSL" attribute to a true value will make HTTP::Tiny
verify that an SSL connection has a valid SSL certificate corresponding
to the host name of the connection and that the SSL certificate has been
verified by a CA. Assuming you trust the CA, this will protect against a
man-in-the-middle attack
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack>. If you are
concerned about security, you should enable this option.
Certificate verification requires a file containing trusted CA
certificates. If the Mozilla::CA module is installed, HTTP::Tiny will
use the CA file included with it as a source of trusted CA's. (This
means you trust Mozilla, the author of Mozilla::CA, the CPAN mirror
where you got Mozilla::CA, the toolchain used to install it, and your
operating system security, right?)
If that module is not available, then HTTP::Tiny will search several
system-specific default locations for a CA certificate file:
* /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
* /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
* /etc/ssl/ca-bundle.pem
An exception will be raised if "verify_SSL" is true and no CA
certificate file is available.
If you desire complete control over SSL connections, the "SSL_options"
attribute lets you provide a hash reference that will be passed through
to "IO::Socket::SSL::start_SSL()", overriding any options set by
HTTP::Tiny. For example, to provide your own trusted CA file:
SSL_options => {
SSL_ca_file => $file_path,
}
The "SSL_options" attribute could also be used for such things as
providing a client certificate for authentication to a server or
controlling the choice of cipher used for the SSL connection. See
IO::Socket::SSL documentation for details.
LIMITATIONS
HTTP::Tiny is *conditionally compliant* with the HTTP/1.1 specification
<http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html>. It attempts to meet
all "MUST" requirements of the specification, but does not implement all
"SHOULD" requirements.
Some particular limitations of note include:
* HTTP::Tiny focuses on correct transport. Users are responsible for
ensuring that user-defined headers and content are compliant with
the HTTP/1.1 specification.
* Users must ensure that URLs are properly escaped for unsafe
characters and that international domain names are properly encoded
to ASCII. See URI::Escape, URI::_punycode and Net::IDN::Encode.
* Redirection is very strict against the specification. Redirection is
only automatic for response codes 301, 302 and 307 if the request
method is 'GET' or 'HEAD'. Response code 303 is always converted
into a 'GET' redirection, as mandated by the specification. There is
no automatic support for status 305 ("Use proxy") redirections.
* Persistent connections are not supported. The "Connection" header
will always be set to "close".
* Cookie support requires HTTP::CookieJar or an equivalent class.
* Only the "http_proxy" environment variable is supported in the
format "http://HOST:PORT/". If a "proxy" argument is passed to "new"
(including undef), then the "http_proxy" environment variable is
ignored.
* "no_proxy" environment variable is supported in the format
comma-separated list of domain extensions proxy should not be used
for. If a "no_proxy" argument is passed to "new", then the
"no_proxy" environment variable is ignored.
* There is no provision for delaying a request body using an "Expect"
header. Unexpected "1XX" responses are silently ignored as per the
specification.
* Only 'chunked' "Transfer-Encoding" is supported.
* There is no support for a Request-URI of '*' for the 'OPTIONS'
request.
* There is no support for IPv6 of any kind.
SEE ALSO
* HTTP::Thin - HTTP::Tiny wrapper with HTTP::Request/HTTP::Response
compatibility
* HTTP::Tiny::Mech - Wrap WWW::Mechanize instance in HTTP::Tiny
compatible interface
* IO::Socket::SSL - Required for SSL support
* LWP::UserAgent - If HTTP::Tiny isn't enough for you, this is the
"standard" way to do things
* Mozilla::CA - Required if you want to validate SSL certificates
* Net::SSLeay - Required for SSL support
SUPPORT
Bugs / Feature Requests
Please report any bugs or feature requests through the issue tracker at
<https://github.com/chansen/p5-http-tiny/issues>. You will be notified
automatically of any progress on your issue.
Source Code
This is open source software. The code repository is available for
public review and contribution under the terms of the license.
<https://github.com/chansen/p5-http-tiny>
git clone git://github.com/chansen/p5-http-tiny.git
AUTHORS
* Christian Hansen <chansen@cpan.org>
* David Golden <dagolden@cpan.org>
CONTRIBUTORS
* Alan Gardner <gardner@pythian.com>
* Alessandro Ghedini <al3xbio@gmail.com>
* Brad Gilbert <bgills@cpan.org>
* Chris Nehren <apeiron@cpan.org>
* Chris Weyl <cweyl@alumni.drew.edu>
* Claes Jakobsson <claes@surfar.nu>
* Craig Berry <cberry@cpan.org>
* David Mitchell <davem@iabyn.com>
* Edward Zborowski <ed@rubensteintech.com>
* Jess Robinson <castaway@desert-island.me.uk>
* Lukas Eklund <leklund@gmail.com>
* Martin-Louis Bright <mlbright@gmail.com>
* Mike Doherty <doherty@cpan.org>
* Serguei Trouchelle <stro@cpan.org>
* Syohei YOSHIDA <syohex@gmail.com>
* Tony Cook <tony@develop-help.com>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2013 by Christian Hansen.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.