Creating A Request

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

Hey guys, if I had a raw HTTP Request (Example from HTTP::Request::Common) :

  POST http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi
  Content-Length: 61
  Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

  name=Gisle&email=gisle%40aas.no&gender=m&born=1964&trust=3%25
[download]

And wanted to use LWP::UserAgent to do it, how would it be done? I tried:

 require LWP::UserAgent;
 my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new(env_proxy => 1,
                              keep_alive => 1,
                              timeout => 30,
                             );
  
my $HTTPrequest = <<EOREQUEST;  
  POST http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi
  Content-Length: 61
  Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

  name=Gisle&email=gisle%40aas.no&gender=m&born=1964&trust=3%25
EOREQUEST
my $request = HTTP::Request->new($HTTPrequest);

my $response = $ua->request($request);

if ($response->is_success) {
     print $response->content;
 } else {
     print $response->error_as_HTML;
 }
[download]

But that didn't work. Any help would be appreciated.

Comment on Creating A Request Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Creating A Request by FamousLongAgo (Friar) on Nov 11, 2002 at 02:52 UTC
Have you tried `HTTP::Headers`? `use HTTP::Headers; my $h = HTTP::Headers->new(); $h->header('Content-Length' => 61 ); $h->header('Content-Type' => 'application/x-www-form-urlencod ed'); my $request = HTTP::Request->new( 'POST', 'http://www.perl.org/survey. +cgi', $h ); my $response = $ua->request( $request ); ...` [download] I think this is the correct usage, but it's untried. Check out the man pages for HTTP::Request and HTTP::Headers for more detail.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Creating A Request by Anonymous Monk on Nov 11, 2002 at 02:57 UTC
This won't work, because I need to use explicitly the form of: `POST http://www.perl.org/survey.cgi Content-Length: 61 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded name=Gisle&email=gisle40aas.no&gender=m&born=1964&trust=3%25` [download] As that's what my users will be inputting. In addition, can't some of this code not concern the headers? (The input will be a HTTP request, persuant to the appropriate RFCs.)	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Creating A Request by sauoq (Abbot) on Nov 11, 2002 at 03:17 UTC
I guess what you are asking for is a method to turn a raw request into an HTTP::Request object. I don't think LWP makes such a method available. You could roll your own. As FamousLongAgo mentioned, you would need to construct your own HTTP::Headers object. Also, an HTTP::Request is a subclass of HTTP::Message and you'll have to look in the latter for the content() method which you will need to set the content of the POST request. -sauoq "My two cents aren't worth a dime.";	[reply]
Re: Creating A Request by dws (Chancellor) on Nov 11, 2002 at 03:35 UTC
See this node for an example of creating a POST on-the-fly. The one you're creating is missing the protocol version in the header. That might cause problems with some web servers.	[reply]
Re: Creating A Request by Enlil (Parson) on Nov 11, 2002 at 02:57 UTC
lwpcook on CPAN offers an example of what you are asking for. -enlil	[reply]
Re: Re: Creating A Request by Anonymous Monk on Nov 11, 2002 at 03:15 UTC
I don't see it? Unless I'm missing something there's no place to put in the whole request, or translate the whole request into code for LWP. If I am missing something, please help!	[reply]
Re: Creating A Request by dingus (Friar) on Nov 11, 2002 at 09:37 UTC
There is code in HTTP::Daemon (and relatives) that does the munging of headers into a LWP::UserAgent request. I'd suggest having a look there - you may want to have a look at the HTTP::Daemon::ClientConn method $c->get_request() as a start. Alternatively POE::Filter::HTTPD has similar code (in fact if you read the source you see its been nicked from HTTP:Daemon and hacked at), I don't know which is better, but I suspect HTTP::Daemon will be more flexible. Dingus `Enter any 47-digit prime number to continue.`	[reply]