HTTP::Message(3)

NAME
HTTP::Message - Class encapsulating HTTP messages

SYNOPSIS
 package HTTP::Request;  # or HTTP::Response
 require HTTP::Message;
 @ISA=qw(HTTP::Message);

DESCRIPTION
A `HTTP::Message' object contains some headers and a content (body). The class is abstract, i.e. it only used as a base class for `HTTP::Request' and `HTTP::Response' and should never instantiated as itself.

The following methods are available: This is the object constructor. It should only be called internally by this library. External code should construct `HTTP::Request' or `HTTP::Response' objects. Returns a copy of the object. Sets the HTTP protocol used for the message. The protocol() is a string like "HTTP/1.0" or "HTTP/1.1". The content() method sets the content if an argument is given. If no argument is given the content is not touched. In either case the previous content is returned. The add_content() methods appends more data to the end of the previous content. The content_ref() method will return a reference to content string. It can be more efficient to access the content this way if the content is huge, and it can be used for direct manipulation of the content, for instance:

  ${$res->content_ref} =~ s/\bfoo\b/bar/g;
Return the embedded HTTP::Headers object. Call the HTTP::Headers->as_string() method for the headers in the message.

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

  $mess->header($field => $val);
  $mess->scan(\&doit);
  $mess->push_header($field => $val);
  $mess->remove_header($field);
  $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 1995-1997 Gisle Aas.

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