sdyates has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Well, I am not getting what I want from LWP::UserAgent. Perhaps I am not asking the right question, or perhaps I need to use a different module

I am able to use $res->content to dump the responce of a positive query. However, I cannot get a failed responce to generate any text. Just like using a simple browser, if I get a 404, I want to see this and process it. When I try and process $res->content after a failed responce, I have a null dump!

Any ideas?


Thanks in advance guys
Simon

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: LWP::UserAgent error responce
by Helter (Chaplain) on Sep 20, 2002 at 17:19 UTC
    From the Perl & LWP (O'Reilly) book:
    Check the status of the response:
         $response->is_success()
     $response->is_error()
     $response->is_redirect()
     $response->is_info() (probably not used much...)

    [download]
    And if it is not a success it has some nice functions to figure out what the problem is:
        $response->code() (numeric code returned, error or not)
    $response->message(); (text status code)
    $response->status_line() (both numeric and string error codes)

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    Or as above you can get error_as_HTML and use that.
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Re: LWP::UserAgent error responce
by Solo (Deacon) on Sep 20, 2002 at 16:48 UTC
    From the HTTP::Response POD: 
     $response = $ua->request($request)
 if ($response->is_success) {
     print $response->content;
 } else {
     print $response->error_as_HTML;
 }

    [download]
    --
    May the Source be with you.

    You said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake; well, this could be it, sweetheart.

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Re: LWP::UserAgent error responce
by jonjacobmoon (Pilgrim) on Sep 20, 2002 at 16:43 UTC
    Can you show us the code, or at least the crucial part?

    I admit it, I am Paco.
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Re: LWP::UserAgent error response
by hacker (Priest) on Sep 21, 2002 at 13:08 UTC
    You could also use LWP::UserAgent and HTTP::Request as follows:
       use strict; 
   use LWP::UserAgent;
   use HTTP::Request;

   my $req         = HTTP::Request->new(HEAD=>$url);
   my $ua          = LWP::UserAgent->new;
   my $resp        = $ua->request($req);
   my $status_line = $resp->status_line;

   my %errors = ('500'=>'Bad hostname supplied',
                 '404'=>'URL not found',
                 '403'=>'URL forbidden',
                 '401'=>'Authorization failed', 
                 '400'=>'Bad request found',
                 '302'=>'Redirected URL'
                );

   if ($status_line =~ /200/) {
      # do stuff
   } else {
      ($status_line) = ($status_line =~ /(\d+)/);

      if (defined($errors{$status_line})) {
          validate_error($errors{$status_line});
      } else {
          validate_error('Unknown error.');
      }
      $success = 0;
   }

   sub validate_error {
           my ($errors) = @_;
           $url = "$errors";
   }

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