HTTP::Request(3)

💖 NAME 💖

okay bestie, gather round — this is HTTP::Request, and it's literally the HTTP style request message class. that's the whole vibe. 🎀

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🌸 VERSION 🌸

version 7.03 — she's serving, she's current. ✨

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

okay so the absolute bare minimum, no cap:

require HTTP::Request;
$request = HTTP::Request->new(GET => 'http://www.example.com/');

and the way you'll usually be living with it:

$ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
$response = $ua->request($request);

like that's it, that's the whole girlboss pipeline 💅

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👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

so HTTP::Request is a class that encapsulates HTTP style requests. what's inside? a request line, some headers, and a content body. the trinity. 💜

and important note: the LWP library uses HTTP style requests even for non-HTTP protocols. yes bestie, even then. instances of this class are usually passed to the request() method of an LWP::UserAgent object.

HTTP::Request is a subclass of HTTP::Message, so she inherits all of mom's methods. 🫶 but here are the additional methods she brings to the table:

• $r = HTTP::Request->new( $method, $uri )
• $r = HTTP::Request->new( $method, $uri, $header )
• $r = HTTP::Request->new( $method, $uri, $header, $content ) — constructs a brand new HTTP::Request object describing a request on the object $uri using method $method. now, the $method argument must be a string, okay? no funny business. the $uri argument can be either a string, or a reference to a URI object. the optional $header argument should be a reference to an HTTP::Headers object or a plain array reference of key/value pairs. and the optional $content argument should be a string of bytes.
• $r = HTTP::Request->parse( $str ) — this one constructs a new request object by parsing the given string. it's giving "i already have the text, just make it a request." ✨
• $r->method
• $r->method( $val ) — used to get/set the method attribute. the method should be a short string like GET, HEAD, PUT, PATCH or POST. iconic verbs only 🔥
• $r->uri
• $r->uri( $val ) — used to get/set the uri attribute. the $val can be a reference to a URI object or a plain string. if you hand her a string, it should be parsable as an absolute URI. periodt.
• $r->header( $field )
• $r->header( $field => $value ) — used to get/set header values, and it's inherited from HTTP::Headers via HTTP::Message. see HTTP::Headers for details and other similar methods that can be used to access the headers. 👀
• $r->accept_decodable — this will set the Accept-Encoding header to the list of encodings that decoded_content() can decode. she's doing the work for you, fr fr.
• $r->content
• $r->content( $bytes ) — used to get/set the content, inherited from the HTTP::Message base class. see HTTP::Message for details and other methods that can be used to access the content.

⚠️ okay this part matters: 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. don't skip this, bestie 😭

• $r->as_string
• $r->as_string( $eol ) — method returning a textual representation of the request. like a little portrait of your request 📸

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

creating requests to be sent with LWP::UserAgent or others can be easy. here are a few examples. let's go 🧚

🍓 Simple POST

here, we'll create a simple POST request that could be used to send JSON data to an endpoint.

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use HTTP::Request ();
use JSON::MaybeXS qw(encode_json);

my $url = 'https://www.example.com/api/user/123';
my $header = ['Content-Type' => 'application/json; charset=UTF-8'];
my $data = {foo => 'bar', baz => 'quux'};
my $encoded_data = encode_json($data);

my $r = HTTP::Request->new('POST', $url, $header, $encoded_data);
# at this point, we could send it via LWP::UserAgent
# my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
# my $res = $ua->request($r);

🎀 Batch POST Request

some services, like Google, allow multiple requests to be sent in one batch. https://developers.google.com/drive/v3/web/batch for example. using the add_part method from HTTP::Message makes this simple. multi-request slay ✨

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use HTTP::Request ();
use JSON::MaybeXS qw(encode_json);

my $auth_token = 'auth_token';
my $batch_url = 'https://www.googleapis.com/batch';
my $url = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/fileId/permissions?fields=id';
my $url_no_email = 'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files/fileId/permissions?fields=id&sendNotificationEmail=false';

# generate a JSON post request for one of the batch entries
my $req1 = build_json_request($url, {
    emailAddress => 'example@appsrocks.com',
    role => "writer",
    type => "user",
});

# generate a JSON post request for one of the batch entries
my $req2 = build_json_request($url_no_email, {
    domain => "appsrocks.com",
    role => "reader",
    type => "domain",
});

# generate a multipart request to send all of the other requests
my $r = HTTP::Request->new('POST', $batch_url, [
    'Accept-Encoding' => 'gzip',
    # if we don't provide a boundary here, HTTP::Message will generate
    # one for us. We could use UUID::uuid() here if we wanted.
    'Content-Type' => 'multipart/mixed; boundary=END_OF_PART'
]);

# add the two POST requests to the main request
$r->add_part($req1, $req2);
# at this point, we could send it via LWP::UserAgent
# my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
# my $res = $ua->request($r);
exit();

sub build_json_request {
    my ($url, $href) = @_;
    my $header = ['Authorization' => "Bearer $auth_token", 'Content-Type' => 'application/json; charset=UTF-8'];
    return HTTP::Request->new('POST', $url, $header, encode_json($href));
}

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💅 SEE ALSO 💅

the whole friend group:

• HTTP::Headers
• HTTP::Message
• HTTP::Request::Common
• HTTP::Response

go say hi, they're all lovely 🫶

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🌟 AUTHOR 🌟

Gisle Aas <gisle@activestate.com> — the icon, the legend, the moment. 👑

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🩷 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 🩷

this software is copyright (c) 1994 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. free as in go off, bestie 💖

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and that's the whole page, no crumbs left. this was perl v5.42.2, dated 2026-07-23, from the HTTP::Request(3) man page. mwah 💋 bye bestie, go build something cute 🦋