# NAME

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

# VERSION

version 6.18

# 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 <gisle@activestate.com>

# 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.