HTTP::Response

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
COPYRIGHT

NAME

HTTP::Response - Class encapsulating HTTP Responses

SYNOPSIS

 require HTTP::Response;

DESCRIPTION

The HTTP::Response class encapsulates HTTP style responses. A response consists of a response line, some headers, and (potentially empty) content. Note that the LWP library also uses HTTP style responses for non-HTTP protocol schemes.

Instances of this class are usually created and returned by the request() method of an LWP::UserAgent object:

 #...
 $response = $ua->request($request)
 if ($response->is_success) {
     print $response->content;
 } else {
     print $response->error_as_HTML;
 }

HTTP::Response is a subclass of HTTP::Message and therefore inherits its methods. The inherited methods most often used are header(), push_header(), remove_header(), and content(). The header convenience methods are also available. See the HTTP::Message manpage for details.

The following additional methods are available:

$r = HTTP::Response->new($rc, [$msg, [$header, [$content]]]): Constructs a new HTTP::Response object describing a response with response code $rc and optional message $msg. The message is a short human readable single line string that explains the response code.
$r->code([$code])
$r->message([$message])
$r->request([$request])
$r->previous([$previousResponse]): These methods provide public access to the object attributes. The first two contain respectively the response code and the message of the response.; The request attribute is a reference the request that caused this response. It does not have to be the same request as passed to the $ua->request() method, because there might have been redirects and authorization retries in between.; The previous attribute is used to link together chains of responses. You get chains of responses if the first response is redirect or unauthorized.
$r->status_line: Returns the string ``<code> <message>''. If the message attribute is not set then the official name of <code> (see the HTTP::Status manpage) 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):
$r->as_string: Returns a textual representation of the response. Mainly useful for debugging purposes. It takes no arguments.
$r->is_info
$r->is_success
$r->is_redirect
$r->is_error: These methods indicate if the response was informational, sucessful, a redirection, or an error.
$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 <draft-ietf-http-v11-spec-07> 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 <draft-ietf-http-v11-spec-07> 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 entiy is no longer fresh.

COPYRIGHT

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